Jun 08 2012
3 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes

Vegan Rainbow Bake!

I was feeling adventurous today so we made something a little different. I picked my ingredients based on an inexplicable urge to eat more colorful foods: orange sweet potato, indigo blue potato, and vivid green Brussel’s sprouts.

This is what we used:

1 sweet potato, cut into bite sized pieces

8 small blue potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces

1 lb Brussel’s sprouts, cleaned and cut in half

1 tbsp fresh chili paste

2 tbsp capers (optional)

juice from 1 lemon

1/3 cup of veganaise

I put the vegenaise, capers, lemon juice, and chili paste into a bowl and mixed it.

Then I added the potatoes and sprouts and mixed them until everything was evenly coated with veganaise sauce.

I put everything onto a foil lined baking sheet and baked it 45 minutes at 350F/175C.

It came out moist and flavorful and crisp and caramelized around the edges.

We will probably do this again: the spicy lemony sauce went well with the herbal flavors in the sprouts, the creamy sweetness of the sweet potato and the starchy comfort of he blue potato. It was filling and full of vitamins and minerals.

 

This is Christie, signing off!

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Jun 07 2012
4 Comments
Thoughts

Milk : It does a body bad.

In a discussion with a fellow student at BJJ, they admitted that they knew that consuming meat was not in line with what they thought was right. They also stated that in addition to meat, they’d be fine saying goodbye to cheese. But what made me cock an eyebrow was when they said ‘But milk? There’s no way I could go without it.’

I would encourage them to try for a few reasons (read : I’ll try to keep this quick and non-preachy).

1) Milk comes from pregnant, nursing cows. Outside of the moral and ethical implications of this happening at large dairy farms, there are direct physical consequences. First, your getting hormones from a pregnant cow. That includes estrogen that would otherwise make you grow fabled soy-mewbs as some media outlets would lead you to believe. Also, the mother cow produces proteins that are there to encourage and strengthen a bond between it and its offspring (ie – introduce addiction). Humans and other breast/teat feeding species do the same, but by drinking cow milk you’re getting addicted to cow boobies. And you’re growing cow boobies. Weird.

2) Milk increases bone loss and osteoporosis and other bad juju. Calcium is awesome when it comes to making and strengthening bones. Acid is not good for your bones. Most milk products weigh in on the acidic side of the pH chart. Large quantities over a long period of time good bones does not make. At all. The science lies in how your body sacrifices minerals like calcium to help neutralize the acidity. More than bones, an acidic environment is a great place for skin problems, allergies and GI problems to root and thrive. A plant based diet, on the other hand, will help keep your body riding the alkaline wave your body craves.

3) Milk is mucous forming. Now, I like to hawk loogies and snore like a diesel engine as much as the next person, but excess mucous isn’t really my bag. For one, it can introduce respiratory issues. What’s more is it can affect sleep and increase ones susceptibility to seasonal allergies. The bottom line is that by eliminating dairy, you can breathe easier than if you eat a block of cheddar and chase it with a gallon of 2% before bed. Don’t do that, by the way.

There are scads of other reasons not to eat dairy. To me, hormones, acidity, and mucous clock in as top factors in deterring me from consuming dairy. I hope you learned something through this post, and if it’s all old hat to you, hopefully it will help aggregate conversation with someone you know who refuses to give up the moo juice.

Peace, my vegans.

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Jun 07 2012
10 Comments
Main Dishes

Saag with Sweet Potato

Brent and I really love Indian food. We make several versions of Americanized favorites including saag. Typically saag is a spinach based sauce flavored with cilantro, chili and turmeric and usually includes chunks of potato, mushroom, and/or paneer. Paneer is a bland home-made cheese so we use tofu that we’ve marinated in lime juice instead. Today, however, we’re using cubes of sweet potato because we had a random sweet potato floating around the apartment (I just had a funny mental image). We put the following into the blender for a creamy base:

1 box of MoriNu soft silken tofu (If you’ve got a soy allergy, soak 1/2 cup of cashews overnight, drain them and add to your blender. This actually tastes marginally better but adds a lot of fat)

1 thumb sized piece of turmeric or 1 tsp powdered turmeric

5-7 cloves of garlic

a generous pinch of cinnamon

1 onion, diced

1 jalapeño pepper or generous spoon of chili paste

1 tablespoon of coconut sugar

This mixture was blended until creamy. Then I added the following greens in the following order, blending thoroughly between:

1 bunch cilantro (stems and leaves)

1 bunch of Swiss chard or mustard greens

1 bunch of spinach

The cilantro goes in first because the stems need to get cut finely. The stems have a lot of flavor. Swiss chard will make a milder saag, mustard greens will make it spicier. Spinach is just a wondrous vegetable. EAT IT!!! Frozen greens work fine for this recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I transferred the contents of the blender to my big pan and rinsed out the blender with almond milk (use soy if you’ve got a nut allergy) and put the milk into the pan. I started to heat it and added 1 sweet potato cut into bite sized pieces. A carton of water packed tofu or a few handfuls of mushrooms are great veggies to add to your saag.

Heat the saag through and stir frequently until the potato is cooked. It should be thick and make giant messy bubbles if unattended (hence the stirring).

This will take about half an hour. Add water, salt, spices, and pepper as needed. I also use a garam masala spice mix  that an Indian colleague brought me from his home Hyderabad instead of pepper. Cracked black pepper is better for most tastes. It looks like sewage but tastes like awesome!

We served this with quinoa that we prepared in the microwave with several green cardamom pods. I love saag and know it’s not for everyone. It’s very herbal and spicy and is too vegetal for some. That being said, We ate the whole pan and all the quinoa too… I’ve got a blood donation coming up and I need the iron and vitamin K!

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

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Jun 06 2012
3 Comments
Recipes, Thoughts

Candied Kumquats

I’ve had two experiences with kumquats. The first was in a French restaurant. The kumquats were on a stick and coated in syrup. They were a sweet delight and totally different from anything I had tasted before. Until I was told they were kumquats, I thought they were some sort of mini orange-cherry hybrid. My second experience was with a raw kumquat. Ew. I was disturbed. Let’s leave it at that.

I saw some kumquats at the store so I thought I would try them again. I didn’t try eating them raw. I decided to candy some of them.

Candied Kumquats
15 or so kumquats, quartered and pitted — I saw some recipes where the pits were left in, but the seeds are bitter so I would take them out
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (I used turbinado)
vanilla bean or a splash of vanilla extract (optional)

 

In a small pot, bring the water and sugar to a boil, stirring so that the sugar melts. Add the kumquats and vanilla. Bring back to a boil and then let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Let it cool. Here’s the finished product:

I’m still not entirely sure what to do with this. I put some in chia seed pudding. It’s an acquired taste, but it was good. There are savory uses for candied kumquats as well. All I know is that I can’t eat them raw.

I don’t know why I’m so desperate to love kumquats, but I am. I need ideas! Share, share!! –Melissa

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Jun 05 2012
5 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes

Vegan Breakfast Burritos!

I like breakfast. I also like burritos. Whoever thought of the breakfast burrito is on my “AWESOME” list. The word “burrito” means, “little donkey”. I like to make my burritos about the size of a small donkey. Do you see where I’m going with this?

We had some more chili tortillas and decided, “what the heck.” We made a tofu scramble. I prefer silken tofu but otherwise this recipe is pretty standard.
1 box of soft silken tofu

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 pinch of sun dried tomato flakes

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 pinch paprika

1 pinch turmeric

salt and pepper to taste

Stir that up in your non-stick skillet until it’s hot and awesome. More importantly…

We cooked up some black beans. What breakfast burrito would be right without beans? We used the following:

1 onion, diced

6-8 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of dry black beans, soaked overnight in an excess of water OR 1 can of beans, drained

salt and chili to taste

We heated the onions until they started to turn translucent. Then we added the beans and a jalapeño and just waited until they were hot and tender.

The beans and scramble made their way into the tortilla along with some salsa and cilantro. This was one of the better breakfasts we’ve had in a while. It was savory, spicy and loaded with delicious garlic and cilantro. We forgot the Daiya but neither of us missed it.

This breakfast is loaded with balanced protein to keep you going and a good serving of carbs to get your started. There’s virtually no fat and no cholesterol which is great because the fiber will help you digest all the other deliciousness for a strong body. Happy breakfast!

This is Brent and Christie, signing off!

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Jun 04 2012
9 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes

Rice Cooker Cuisine: Arroz con Gandules

Arroz gon gandules has always been an exotic dish to me. I imagined that in order to cook it well, you needed someone’s abuela to teach you. Therefore, I never tried making it. Ever. Until yesterday. I found myself craving it and also wanting to cook something that was easy to bring for lunch and reheat at work.

Ingredients:
4oz dried gandules
1 cup rice, uncooked
1 packet Sazon Con Culantro Achiote
3 clove garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 tomato, diced and crushed
olive oil
salt and pepper

I went to the store looking for frozen green gandules but settled for dry non-green ones. I took the beans beans and left them to soak for about 6.5 hours. I literally left them: I left the house and wore myself out doing stuff, so believe me when I say that the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was slave over a stove. So, I decided to use a rice cooker.

In a perfect world, I would have boiled the beans a little bit at this point. But, I didn’t. And things still turned out OK. Here’s what I did do: I rinsed and drained the beans and added them along with the rice and the seasoning packet to the rice cooker pot. Then, I heated up the onions, garlic, and tomato in a pan with some olive oil. I first let the garlic and onion heat up. Then I added the tomato, crushing them with my hand before while adding them to the pan. When the tomato was soft, the onion was translucent, and there was some nice liquid in the pan, I added all the pan contents to the pot with the rice and beans.

Now, here is where I get really scientific. I added enough water to the pot to hit the 3 cup line. This doesn’t mean three cups of water. I don’t know what it means. You’ll have to ask my rice cooker. My rice cooker doesn’t talk. I’m sorry! I mixed the ingredients and then turned on the rice cooker.

Here’s what it looked like about 10-15 minutes in. Now, even though my intent was to let this dish cook itself without me having to supervise, I should have stirred things every 7-10 minutes to prevent sticking. Of course, I kind of enjoy sticky rice, so it ended up OK. After the rice cooker declared things finished, I stirred up the rice again and pressed the cook button again. It went for at least another 5 minutes. Here’s how it looked:

I was worried my rice would be too mushy. It ended up perfect. I was worried my beans wouldn’t cook all the way through. They weren’t as soft as I would have hoped, but they turned out okay. Boiling the beans beforehand would have helped. I’m actually surprised that this didn’t turn into a soupy mess.

I’m really happy with how this turned out and I know my next attempt at making it will be even better! Things I will do next time is throw in some minced fresh cilantro, more garlic, more salt, maybe some spice, and some chopped olives. Yummm….

Not bad for a “lazy” dish! –Melissa

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Jun 03 2012
7 Comments
Snacks

Mango Daquiri with Thai Basil

Brent and I were feeling adventurous this weekend and a generous tree gave me a couple of free mangoes on my way home from work on Friday so I decided to make some daquiris. We combined the following in the blender:

flesh from 2 large mango, skin and seed discarded

juice from 1 lime

several sprigs of basil, leaves only

1/2 to 1 cup of rum (optional)

coconut water as needed

We blended it all up, adding coconut water until we liked the texture and then were ready for an afternoon of watching summer storms and laughing together.

We used Thai basil. It’s got a cinnamon sweet flavor and added a lot to this drink. Regular basil or no basil would be fine too but I love my greens! Mango is definitely a nutritional powerhouse and is great for your digestion as well as being a great source for vitamins and minerals.

This is Brent and Christie, signing off.

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Jun 02 2012
2 Comments
Recipes

Smoked Soy Curls

This morning, I found myself missing smoked sausage. On weekend mornings, we would often have smoked sausage or hot dogs with fried eggs, fried rice, and tomatoes (we’re Filipino so this is completely normal for me). While Gimme Lean has a great vegan soy sausage product that would be great for this type of meal, I was really craving something smoked. So, I grabbed half a cup of dry soy curls and improvised.

While the soy curls were rehydrating, I mixed together about 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tbsp of agave nectar, and added a few drops of liquid smoke. I have never used liquid smoke before, but I read in some places to be careful about the amount used. So, I tried to be conservative without even really knowing what that meant. Let’s just say that I wish I had put a few more dashes of liquid smoke in the mix. Once the curls were rehydrated, I drained them and let them marinade in the mixture for a few minutes.

I baked the soy curls in the toaster oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. While it was baking, I fried some brown rice in garlic, and cut up some tomatoes and green onion which I seasoned with salt and pepper.

Breakfast was served! My smoky marinade can use some tweaking, or maybe I need to let it marinade for a bit longer. I was worried that I used too much soy sauce and was surprised when the sweetness of the agave nectar seemed to be the prominent taste. I’ll probably use maple syrup next time, too. I don’t have any right now which is totally tragic. This still tasted great, though, and is one recipe I won’t mind experimenting with repeatedly. I’ll take whatever suggestions y’all may have! –Melissa

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Jun 01 2012
5 Comments
Snacks

Nuts about Flowers: Lavender Almond Chia Pudding

After how adorable and delicious the rose pistachio chia pudding turned out I wanted to give another flower combo a go. I decided that lavender might have the right herbal flowery aroma to pair with toasted almonds so I will need the following:

1 tsp lavender syrup (more if you like sweet things)

1 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

10 or so roasted almonds

2 generous pinches of food grade lavender flowers

I combined the seeds, syrup and almond milk and set it aside for about half an hour.

While the chia were absorbing the liquid, I put some roasted almonds in a paper bag and bashed them with my favorite rolling pin. It was very cathartic.

I mixed them into the pudding with the lavender flowers, saving some of each for a garnish. This is a refreshing snack that I feel like I should be enjoying with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Some of you might be asking yourselves what sort of syrup I use for my lavender and rose flavoring. Monin makes vegan syrup in organic and conventional varieties as well as sugar free syrups. I’m a big fan of their line.

This is Christie, signing off!

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May 31 2012
6 Comments
Snacks

Granola: not just for hippies and hikers anymore!

Food dehydrators aren’t just for apple chips and other dried fruits and veggies. They’re also great for making your own granola. Brent and I have a generic recipe that’s pretty much fool proof.

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup buckwheat groats

1 tbsp flax or sesame seeds (optional)

1 cup dried fruit (we’re using 1/2 cup dried cranberries and 1/2 cup goji berries)

1 cup  nuts (we’re using slivered almonds)

1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)

1 tablespoon of carob or cocoa powder (optional)

2-3 tablespoons of  jam (we’re using raspberry)

Combine the following in a large bowl and mix in the jam until the mixture begins to stick together. Spread it out on a drying sheet and dehydrate 4 hours. My dehydrator doesn’t have any heat settings or a timer. If yours does, don’t worry: this is fool proof, remember?

Buckwheat groats add a lovely crunch even if you decide not to add jam and dehydrate the mixture. When we make that instead, we call it museli. It’s got less sugar and is just as delicious. We put museli and granola over soy yogurt, fresh fruit, non-dairy ice cream or with regular cereal. It’s also great by itself as a snack. Buckwheat, oats, nuts and dried fruit are loaded with balanced protein, soluble and insoluble fiber, iron, essential fatty acids, important trace minerals and lots of vitamin C and B vitamins.

 

It’s also versatile: you can add a pinch of cinnamon if you’re so inclined; switch jam for rice nectar or maple syrup; add any fruits you like – apples and bananas are great! Use quinoa flakes instead of rolled oats… okay, now I’m hungry.

This is Brent and Christie, signing off!

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