Category Archives: Snacks

Jan 19 2012
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Cooking, Recipes, Snacks

Ridiculously Easy & Versatile Refried Beans

I almost hate to admit this, but Taco Bell has become a fast food savior of mine since transitioning to a vegan diet. I can only eat so many French fries and 6″ veggie delight subs. Taco Bell rises above the rest for one reason: beans. A bean burrito, no cheese is super cheap, tasty, and vegan — no lard, you guys! I have also ordered nachos with beans only (which has to be announced to the entire staff for some reason).

I was itching to have some refried beans at home, so I went to the store to buy a can. I spotted the Fat Free can first. Fat free? No way! So I picked up a can of Traditional style refried beans. I read the ingredients. LARD. No way! I checked out the Fat Free Can was delighted to read that fat free meant no lard and simple ingredients. Yay! Now, you may be thinking that I could have started with a can of pinto beans. Yes, I could have. For convenience, though, a can of Bush’s Fat Free Refried Beans is perfect.

Melissa’s Ridiculously Easy & Versatile Refried Beans

Ingredients:
1 can Bush’s Best Refried Beans, Fat Free — I used about 1/3 can per serving
Shredded ‘cheese’ — Christie sent me some Daiya and I am in lust with this cheese
diced onion — I used green onion since I had some
your favorite hot sauce — I’ve tried it with Sriracha, Tabasco, and Taco Bell hot sauce
Extra seasonings — the can of beans is already seasoned, but you can add garlic (fresh or powder), onion powder, cumin…

Put your beans in a microwave-safe bowl. Add your seasonings and smoosh it in with the beans. Top with the cheese. Microwave, covered, for about a minute (use a bowl so that the cheese doesn’t melt onto whatever cover you use).

I like my onions crisp and raw, so I top the warm beans and cheese with them. I used shears to chop my green onions. Then, top with your hot sauce. Mix it all together and:

  • Stuff it in a tortilla to make a bean burrito OR
  • Serve it with some Spanish or Mexican rice OR
  • Throw it on a bed of lettuce; add tomatoes, avocados, jicama, and cilantro and you’ve got yourself an awesome salad OR
  • Put some tortilla chips around it and you’ve got yourself some fancy bean and cheese nachos:

I adore versatile foods. This was muy delicioso! –Melissa

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Jan 14 2012
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Cooking, Snacks

Tostones… vegan junk food, not a party game.

Plantains are like bananas in appearance but they’re not as sweet. Usually they’re cooked (fried, boiled, grilled, baked, whatever) green when their texture and flavor resembles that of a potato. When overripe they’re either eaten raw or fried in thin chips. Plantains are basically the Inspector Gadget of the banana world.

Here’s me peeling one… they’re a little stubborn. I’m going to make them into tostones, a regional specialty, sometimes called patacones.

Most recipes for tostones call for twice fried plantains, but I prefer to boil for the first round instead of frying. This results in a tostone that remains soft after it cools. Traditional recipes can get hard and unpalatable when cool. Anyways, I chopped my plantains into inch long sections (2-3cm) at a slight angle. I dropped them into water, brought it to a boil, reduced the heat to a low boil and allowed to simmer for another 25 minutes.

After boiling, they should be soft and yellow. I poured the water over a strainer to collect the plantain pieces.

One by one I placed each piece onto a clean plate that I moistened with warm water…

… and SMASHED it with a clean damp glass jar. Do this carefully to maintain the aesthetic or just smoosh them for the fun of it.

Then I fried it on each side for about a minute in grapeseed oil, until golden brown. You can use whatever kind of oil you like as long as it’s suitable for frying. I know Melissa likes safflower oil. I place them onto a clean dry paper towel to drain off some of the oil. They’re great with hot sauce, mojo (a garlic and parsley sauce) or just salt. They’re also rich in vitamins A and C as well as magnesium and potassium.

Let me know how you like them!

This is Christie, signing off!

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Jan 10 2012
6 Comments
Main Dishes, Recipes, Snacks

Salad rolls… kinda like a sandwich without the bread, meat and cheese.

Now that Melissa is talking about how much she loves to cook, I’m going to post about more things I make when I don’t want to cook. This is a little snack that’s low calorie, high fiber, and full of nutrients. Here’s what you need to start: a sheet of nori (like for sushi rolls), mixed salad greens, and your favorite dressing.  Additional fillings can include sprouts, avocado, shredded carrots, tomato, hummus, baba ghanouj or some other spread. Get creative! If you’re using a soft spread like hummus, sprouts or shredded carrots will keep things from getting too messy. Put the nori on your sushi roller (you can get one for $5 on eBay or at your local specialty market. I covered mine with cling wrap for easier clean up.), add a generous fistful of greens, and put your toppings onto that along with a few tablespoons of hummus or whatever spread you like.

Afterward roll it gently. This part gets easier with practice. Moisten the far edge of the nori with a wedge of lemon or slice of tomato to seal the roll.

I like to slice it for presentation and dip into my favorite salad dressing. Lately it’s been a tough call between “herb tahini” and “spicy tomato basil”. There are so many possible combinations: mango and pesto hummus, garlic hummus and avocado, whatever!

Some day soon, I’ll share my recipe for home-made hummus. So many flavors: black olive, roasted red pepper, cucumber&dill, roasted artichoke heart, pesto, chipotle, extra garlic, sun-dried tomato, whatever. Let me know what combination you dream up! I want to nom them!!!

 

This is Christie, signing off.

 

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Jan 05 2012
3 Comments
Snacks

Cheese… vegan style.

You: Don’t you miss cheese?

Me: What, do you think I’m a communist!? Of course I miss cheese. But you want to know why I haven’t gone back to my one wedge of manchego per week habit? Cheese tastes different to me now. It’s bitter. Milk too. When I get coffee and they give me dairy instead of soy, not only do I get pimples the next day but it tastes bitter (I return it, it’s not worth the farts and zits). I suspect I was so used to whatever it was that makes dairy taste weird to me now that I just didn’t notice. It reminds me of when I switched tap water for distilled – now Florida tap water tastes chemical. Weird. Anyways, there are some great cheese substitutes out there. My favorite for cheese and crackers is from Dr. Cow.

This company makes a range of tree nut cheeses. Feel free to make jokes, I do. Macadamia and cashew nuts seasoned with delicious exotic things like dulse (a kind of seaweed), hemp (a relative of hops, like in your beer) and Himalayan sea salt. It’s got a good texture for slicing and putting on crackers and is actually a raw food! I wouldn’t consider it a replacement for any particular type of cheese, it’s really a food all it’s own. You might find it’s a little pricey, usually $8 or so for a 2.6 ounce chunk. It’s about the same as you would pay for a similar chunk of seriously fancy aged Spanish cheese like manchego, just without the lactose and cholesterol. I can rationalize it… easy.

I wouldn’t think twice about serving this to strangers at a cocktail party. I love this cheese that much.

This is Christie, signing off… to finish that little cheese wedge.

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Dec 22 2011
5 Comments
Snacks

Adventures in Fruit: Under the Bed!

This post is about monster fruit and dragon fruit – two fruits that I decided to try for no reason other than that they’re fascinating. I’m actually not new to dragon fruit. I have seen it in Central America, California and Florida. I hope you find it at your market.

I’ve seen flesh in these fruits, yellow, hot pink, and white. It tastes like and has the mouth feel of kiwi but not as acidic.

The next new fruit on the menu is called “monstera” or monster fruit.

This particular fruit is rather amazing. It reminds me of pineapple. As the fruit ripens and dark green outer scales fall off, pale white flesh is revealed. I tried pulling it off with my fingers but that got messy. I ended up eating it like corn on the cob. It tastes like pina colada. I hope you get to try this one too. I hope I find it again.

This is Christie, signing off to look for more terrifying fruit!

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Dec 13 2011
2 Comments
Snacks

Adventures in Fruit

I made a post not long ago about egg fruit and black sapote, two fruits grown here in South Florida. https://turningveganese.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/culinary-adventures/

I know why egg fruit is called egg fruit: the ripe fruit has the texture and appearance of a hard boiled egg yolks. It had one seed in the middle and was dry in texture. They taste like a cross between banana and sweet potato with a touch of vanilla. It might sound weird but I’d buy it again. I suspect it would make an amazing vegan flan.

Now on to the black sapote, also called “chocolate fruit”. I was told to eat the fruit when it started to get noticeably soft and wrinkly. The pulp was smooth and had 8 hard brown seeds reminiscent of lima beans. This bad boy was the color, texture and flavor of really good chocolate pudding. I bought 5 more this weekend at my farmer’s market to take with me to work for lunch this week. I’m looking forward to having this one made into custard or just chilled, just like the snack-packs of my youth. I’m really glad I decided to branch out and try both of these.

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Dec 06 2011
5 Comments
Snacks

Chips and Dip? Oh yeaaaah.

The star of this show is the Florida avocado.

Avocado is full of potassium, B vitamins, and vitamins E and K. They’re also loaded with fiber and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Research has suggested that the monounsaturated fats in avocado can help lower cholesterol levels. I could go on about how awesome avocado is in terms of nutrition but let’s get to the deliciousness. There are a lot of ways to eat avocado. I’ve had it in brownies, ‘milk’shakes, salads, veggie sushi, and my personal favorite… guacamole. I prefer Hass avocados  (the ones with dark skin) but one of my colleagues has a tree in their yard and brings crates of the fruit to work and I’m a big fan of stuff for free. Florida avocados are a little bigger than Hass avocados so I’m writing this recipe accordingly.

1 green skinned avocado or 2 Hass avocados

juice from 1 lime

6-12 cloves of garlic, minced

garlic salt and hot sauce to taste

I like a lot of garlic so I added 12 cloves, the avocado, and the lime. I mooshed it with a fork until I liked the texture. Then I started adding the garlic salt and hot sauce, I used Tapatio, mixing until I liked the taste. Then I scooped it up with blue corn chips and stuffed them in my eating hole.

It’s great on quesadillas or on tacos too. Apparently I’m all about vegan junk food.

This is Christie, signing off… to eat the rest of that bowl of guacamole.

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Nov 23 2011
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Snacks, Thoughts

I’m vegan and I eat salad… sometimes.

Spinach salad with pecans, currants, seasoned tofu and raspberry vinagrette.

This post has a picture of a salad, but it’s really about spinach. People ask me “where do you get your iron?” as if beef is the only thing on the planet that has iron in it. I’ll tell you: spinach is the best source of iron I can think of after having consumed several glasses of wine. Ounce for ounce, spinach has almost twice the iron compared to beef. Calorie for calorie, spinach has ten times the iron versus beef. No wonder Popeye was so studly after freebasing the stuff. As an added bonus, spinach contains calcium and vitamins A & C. Beef offers cholesterol and fat. Anyways, I’ll get off my spinach soap box for a little while and tell you a bit about this salad.

Salad isn’t the only thing I eat, even though the rabbit is my power animal. Still, salad doesn’t have to be boring. This one includes tofu that I marinated with dill and lemon. It reminds me of feta cheese. It’s a nice balancing element to the mellow pecans and sweet currants. Balsamic dressing might have been superior to raspberry but still delicious, crisp and refreshing. Now I have to go make some vegan quesadillas so I don’t get too self righteous about being a health nut.

this is Christie, signing out

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Nov 22 2011
2 Comments
Snacks

Just Because It’s Vegan Doesn’t Mean You Should Eat It

Twizzlers (yum… Twizzlers) may be vegan, but that doesn’t mean I should partake in them. I’ve been thinking about them lately because they are quite possibly my favorite non-chocolate candy, and I bought a huge bag of them before Halloween.

I am trying to focus on eating healthy as a whole. Therefore, I have decided to snack on fruit (or veggies or nuts) instead of candy. It’s simple: candy is not nutritious. It may be delicious, it may taste fruity, but it is not fruit. I think the ingredient list for Twizzlers proves my case:

At least I know what I’m getting when I eat a grape or carrot or pear.

I’ve heard and read many, many times over the past several years to pay attention to the listed ingredients of the foods you eat. Two general rules:

1. Opt for products with less ingredients. When the ingredients list takes up half the package, it’s probably best to put it back on the shelf.

2. If you can’t pronounce the ingredient, you probably shouldn’t eat it.

Part of me does celebrate the fact that I can indulge in Twizzlers and not feel like I’m breaking any vegan laws. The other part of me knows that, vegan or not, Twizzlers should stay on the shelf and out of my body.

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