vegan nacatamal pie

A friend of ours recently left Colorado to travel the world and teach English. Her first destination will be Nicaragua. In the process of lightening her load, she left us with her crock pot. I thought it would be nice to expand my own horizons and make a Nicaraguan dish for our first crock pot meal. I honestly had no idea what Nicaraguan food was like until I looked it up. It's interesting how we seem to be satisfied with a certain number of ethnic foods (Chinese, Thai, Indian, Italian, Mexican) and ignore inspiration from other parts of the world.  Anyway, I made Nicaraguan nacatamal pie - a crock pot version of nacatamales which are fairly similar to Mexican tamales. Instead of using pork butt I made these vegetarian and added anasazi beans though small red beans would have been more authentic to Central American cuisine. Speaking of food diversity, wouldn't it be interesting to have more bean options on our grocery store shelves?

Filling Ingredients:
anasazi beans, cooked
rice, cooked
potatoes, sliced
bell peppers, sliced
tomatoes, sliced
onions, chopped
green olives, minced
achiote paste
mint
salt
black pepper

Topping Ingredients (adapted from The Cooking Bride):
2 c. instant Masa Harina
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
2 c. veggie broth
½ c. olive oil

Mix the filling ingredients in a 6 qt. crock pot.  Mix the topping ingredients and glop it on top of the filling.  Cover and cook on low for 5 hours or until potatoes and masa dough are cooked.

vegan green bean casserole

Happy Thanksgiving! This green bean casserole looks pretty lonely. Fear not! We are heading over to a potluck where it can mingle with cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and wine. Mmm...

I modified Alton Brown's recipe to be vegan and more our style. Ours features the green beans we canned this summer, but frozen or store-bought canned beans work just as well.

Topping Ingredients:
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 t. salt

Sauce Ingredients:
2 T. canola oil
1 lb. mushrooms, diced
1 t. salt
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 t. nutmeg, ground
3 T. all-purpose flour
1 c. veggie broth
1 c. almond milk
3 pints of home canned green beans, cut in 2 inch segments

Preheat the oven to 400. Toss together the onions, flour, and salt. Grease a baking sheet with canola oil and spread out the onions. Throw them in the oven (middle rack) and toss every 5 to 10 minutes. Bake for about a total of 30 minutes or until golden. We had issues with uneven baking so next time I think we will just fry the onions.

In a pot, cook the mushrooms, salt, pepper, and canola oil over medium heat. After 5 minutes the mushrooms should be sweating. Add garlic and nutmeg and cook for another minute. Mix in flour and cook for another minute. Add the veggie broth and almond milk. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes. Mix in the green beans and 1/2 of the baked onions. Pour into a 9x13 baking dish and top with the remaining baked onions. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.