Feb 24 2012
3 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes

Vegan Butternut Squash and Mushroom Risotto… want some?

I have been missing this comfort food so I decided to make some. I’ve never had so many pots and pans out at once. I’m a lazy simple girl when it comes to food and this was a first. You’ll need a baking sheet, a sauce pan, and 2 medium fry pans. You’ll need the following:
1/2 cup of arborio rice (this is more than enough for 2 servings)
1/2 liter of water
1 cube of veggie bouillon
1 cup of butternut squash
1 quart of baby bello mushrooms, sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced
1/4 onion, diced
1 tsp olive oil
salt to taste
herbes de provence
white wine, I prefer pinot grigio for this recipe. Just use something you would drink. Don’t cook with wine you wouldn’t drink. That’s just nasty.

I cut the top off my butternut squash (guestimating a cup) and wrapped it in tinfoil. I put it in the oven at 350F/175C for about 30-45 minutes or until the skin gets translucent and it starts to become tender.

Set it aside to cool.
I put about half a liter of water into my sauce pan along with a bouillon cube and brought it to a boil. Then I turned the heat to low.

While I was waiting for the water to boil, I added the onion, garlic and olive oil to one of my fry pans and heated them until they began to sputter. Then I added the mushrooms and turned the heat to medium-low and began cooking the rice.

I put the rice in a fry pan with a cup of wine and a generous pinch of herbes de provence. I turned the heat to low. I sliced up the squash (no skin) into 1 cm cubes and added it to the risotto.

I added the broth 1/2 cup or so at a time until the rice began to get tender and the liquid was mostly absorbed. It should be translucent except for a little bit in the middle that should still be opaque white when it’s done. You might not use all the broth. I mixed in my mushrooms and added a tablespoon of nutritional yeast but I do that to everything. I garnished it with some basil from my balcony garden.

I was pretty pleased with my ability to make some serious comfort food. If you get to try it, let me know what changes you’d make to improve it.

This is Christie, signing off.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 23 2012
5 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes, Snacks

Easy Baked Eggplant

Eggplant is awesome. It’s purple… sometimes white or marbled, and versatile. This recipe is an easy addition to any meal: it’s low in calories, tasty and easy to prepare. Most of the calories in this recipe come from the almonds. Almonds are a great source of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. These two nutrients are often overlooked by vegans. Omnivores get them from fish along with such delicious contaminants as heavy metals mercury and lead or pesticides like DDT. Flax seeds and nuts are a great source of these nutrients that are vital for brain function. Your brain is the fattiest organ in your body! Weird, right?

For this recipe slice your eggplant into one inch thick pieces and ‘bread’ it in a mixture of the following:

1 cup of almond meal

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

a pinch of salt

Now place the pieces on lightly oiled tinfoil (I rest each on top of 3 almonds or sprinkle some corn meal for better air flow), cover with foil, and bake it at 375F/190C for 25-30 minutes.

After this you’ll remove the foil and poke with a knife every 5 minutes or so until they’re tender.

Just imagine this smothered with pasta sauce and melted soy cheese… Okay, I’m drooling.

This is Christie, signing off!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 22 2012
5 Comments
Cooking, Recipes

Stuffed Mushrooms? Shut Your Mouth! I Mean… EAT IT!

Me to Younger Version of Myself (YVoM): Guess what? I made stuffed mushrooms today.
YVoM: Shut up! Who do you think you are, Giada DeLaurentis or something?
Me: Haha. No, I’ve gone vegan and I actually cook now!
YVoM: Wait, what?
Me: I know, it’s unbelievable.
YVoM: I can’t believe you cooked stuffed mushrooms. I can’t believe you’re vegan.
Me: Listen to me. We are stronger than we think!
YVoM: Grrrreat, Future Me is still sentimental and introspective.
Me: Call the blog ‘Turning Veganese.’
YVoM: I still blog? Mmmkay. Hey, I need a photo of those mushrooms to post on the blog.
Me: Here you go.

 

Talking to yourself is normal, right? It doesn’t matter. The point is, cooking and eating vegetables is my new normal. I had some mushrooms that I bought over the weekend, and I really wanted to cook them today. So I Googled “mushrooms recipe vegan” and found this recipe from Healthy Vegan Recipes. It’s so easy and versatile and delicious! The stuffing is basically made up of spinach and ground toasted almonds with onions, garlic, and chopped up mushroom stems. I can’t wait to try it out with different spices and nuts. Oh, by the way, I burned my nuts when I toasted them the first time so be sure you watch them. Heh, burned nuts. I ended up with 10 stuffed button mushrooms and ate seven with them with some brown rice. Dinner was served!

I kind of love being vegan. xoxo… Melissa

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 21 2012
8 Comments
Snacks

Apple chips!

This is one of my favorite snacks when I’m feeling peckish at the lab early in the morning and don’t want to accidentally eat something that’s not so great for me like a rice krispy treat or bag of potato chips from the hospital cafeteria or one of the local coffee shops. You’ll need a dehydrator for this one and some apples. That’s it.

 

I used a mandolin slicer for this particular project and managed to remove part of my pinkie. After showing my finger to a friend who is a plastic surgeon he informed me that he won’t let his significant other own a mandolin slicer (or a snow blower, but that’s another post) telling me that they’re “finger death traps”. He is doing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital so I suspect he knows what he’s talking about with regards to the snow blowers and I can tell you first hand (oops, pun) that the mandolin makes life easier up until the point where you can’t wash your own hair. Just saying.

Slice your apples carefully with a sharp knife or mandolin, put them in the dryer (mine goes overnight), and you’ve got a crispy, organic (if you’re so inclined), filling, preservative free snack.

Slice them thicker or thinner depending on your taste. I make a new batch every couple of days from the $3 3lb bags of apples that I get at my supermarket and re-use the same plastic baggies to transport them to work. Thicker chips don’t get crushed as easily but thinner ones are more decadent!

This is Christie, signing off!

 

 

Tagged , , ,
Feb 20 2012
1 Comment
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes, Thoughts

Black beans + sweet potato = LOVE!

Inspired by the success of my previous experiment, I decided to make another one. I forgot to head to the supermarket since getting back from my weekend getaway so I’m using random things in my kitchen to make a meal.
1 can of black beans (drained) or 1 cup dry beans (soaked overnight)
1/2 small sweet onion
1 inch ginger, chopped (the piece is about the size of my thumb)
flesh from 1 large sweet potato, baked or steamed
1/3 cup quinoa flakes
2 heaping tbsp flax meal
2-3 tbsp lime juice
a splash of soy sauce or suitable alternative
1/2 jalapeño, minced
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 small handful (1/4 cup) cilantro, chopped
salt

I  put the dry ingredients along with the cilantro, onion and ginger into a bowl and mixed them well. My cilantro was frozen but it shouldn’t affect the recipe fresh or frozen.

I then stirred in the beans, jalapeño and sweet potato with my potato masher. Usually I like to keep the skin but for this recipe it didn’t quite make sense, so I made it into chips in my dehydrator.

Originally I intended to make burgers out of this mixture by forming them into patties and baking them, but when I was tasting it to check the salt I realized I had an irresistable urge to eat tacos.

I come from the land of abundant fresh avocado so it was a cinch to make some exotic vegan tacos with guacamole and a light dusting of paprika. If I had this recipe to do over, I might saute the onions and ginger before mixing them into the rest of the ingredients but otherwise it was a good combo.

I also baked some that I made into patties and that was also pretty rad. In other words, this would make good burgers or ‘meat’balls in addition to being an awesome taco filling. Guacamole was a good topping but tomato, lime and a sprinkling of pepperjack Daiya cheese would be truly legendary. The sweet spicy sweet potato mix would be enhanced by the citrus and salty cheese and the tomato is just there to be awesome.

This is Christie, signing off.

 

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Feb 19 2012
7 Comments
Thoughts

Burgers and Brussels Sprouts and Balance

Greetings, everyone! Melissa here. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who follows Turning Veganese. You have no idea how excited I get when I see that we have a new follower or a comment. Sometimes, I even do a little running man dance move because I’m so excited. I wish I had more time to interact with all of you. Speaking of interaction, did you know that we have a Twitter? Follow us!

I started this blog four months ago. What I thought it would be: A space to whine about how much I miss meat, how being vegan is too challenging, and ways to tolerate tofu. What it has become: Motivation to be healthier and more creative in the kitchen, a way to celebrate my vegan successes, and an experience–or rather, a gift–that I have shared with two of my favorite people. I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell Christie and Brent about the blog. I am serious. And now, the best things on this blog are Christie’s posts, and I am so grateful for all the hard work she puts into Turning Veganese. I would probably be eating bacon and cheese with a side of pizza and chicken right now if not for her encouragement.

I find myself hitting a milestone of sorts in my vegan transition: I no longer feel like I am depriving myself of anything by following a vegan diet. I don’t miss meat or cheese or butter. I’m actually a little grossed out by it. My tastes are changing. I used to dread having to hit the salad bar at work because there were no vegan options. Now, I love the taste of wild greens, spinach, corn, peas, green pepper… I actually crave spinach. It’s so weird. I was craving spinach yesterday, so I made White Bean and Spinach Burgers. I saw some gargantuan Brussels sprouts when I went to buy the spinach, so I roasted some of those big boys, too (I forgot to buy hamburger buns):

For the burgers, I followed Christie’s recipe, substituting white beans for black eyed peas simply because I have 10 cans of white beans for some reason, and then adding a cup of chopped spinach. I’m not 100% thrilled with how my Brussels sprouts turned out last night, so recipe is pending.

I am starting to tell people that I am going vegan. This is huge for me. I get a lot of different responses, usually about how that person can or can’t ever go vegan, asking me if I miss meat or what tofu tastes like… but no matter what, I always get a “good for you” or “you’re so good” along with “tell me how it goes,” — all totally sincere.

Healthwise, I am doing pretty awesome. I gained weight at first, mostly because I would get overly excited when I found junk food or anything super tasty that was also vegan (oh hello snap pea crisps and sweet potato chips). In the past couple of weeks, I have lost a few pounds. With my tastes changing, I find I need less of certain food “accessories”–salt, sugar, salad dressing, etc. I didn’t go vegan to lose weight, though. I want to be clear about that. I did it to get healthier. And I have. I recently had a health screening and my numbers were so good that the nurse was cheering for me. She actually said that based on my numbers, she would assume I am an athletic person. (Excuse me while I laugh my ass off.)

So I feel great and I am super motivated to keep going and stay committed. I’m learning that there is never a stopping point at which I can say YES, I AM 100% VEGAN AND HEALTHY. If there is anything I learn from Christie or the lady at the grocery store or my friends who are really invested in organic/GMO or current studies and literature, it’s that there are always better foods to eat and better ways to cook.

Thanks again to all of you for reading the blog, following the blog, trying out our recipes, giving us awards (ohmigosh, how fantastic and humbling and encouraging). I’m amazed and inspired by all of your support. I have so much more in my brain and in my kitchen that I want to share with you, and I know Christie and Brent do, too. So, stay tuned! We love you. –Melissa

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 17 2012
3 Comments
Main Dishes, Recipes, Snacks, Thoughts

Great big raw green dinner!

I am getting ready to go out of town and I wanted to make sure nothing in my kitchen spoiled. I had some weird foods: Spinach, kumquats, yellow zucchini and avocado. What am I supposed to do with that!? Because this was an experiment I didn’t take as many pictures as I would normally like but it was good I decided to share.

I decided to julienne the zucchini and mixed that with some sun dried tomato and mixed it with 1/3 of my avocado as a binding agent. I also added a pinch of sea salt and a tablespoon of nutritional yeast.

I mooshed it into a mold and put it into the freezer while I did the next part. I chopped up the kumquats, a big bunch of mint leaves, and again mixed that with 1/3 of my avocado.

Next I took the rest of the herbs in my fridge (parsley, basil, and dill) and put the stems and leaves into my blender with a generous tablespoon of tahini, the remaining 1/3 of the avocado, juice from 2 lemons and 1 lime, and a little bit of almond milk until the flavor was balanced as a dressing. I blended it until it came out nice and creamy.

I covered a plate in spinach, put my chilled zucchini mixture onto that and then spooned the kumquat mint relish onto the sides. I added a quick drizzle of my tahini herb dressing and sat down to a healthy raw vegan dinner.

The mellow flavors of the zucchini and sun dried tomato were a good base for the tangy, sweet mint kumquat relish. The herb tahini dressing was really good but I think it brought too many flavors into the dish. The avocado brought the whole thing together as a common element in all the parts and the spinach helped me get it into my mouth. I think if I do this again, I might try adding some raw garlic to the zucchini and save the herb tahini dressing for plain spinach salads.

Experimenting is probably my favorite part of being vegan. I hope you get to experiment a little. The more you do it, the more things will ‘work out’ instead of being composted. Good luck!

 

This is Christie, signing off.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 16 2012
4 Comments
Snacks, Thoughts

Adventures in Fruit: Kumquat… PERVERT! Oh wait…

I decided to buy some kumquats (also cumquats) at my farmer’s market because, though I’m familiar with them and their silly name, I’ve never actually tried them.

The idea of putting an entire citrus fruit in my mouth took a little while to warm up to since I associate the zest of lemons and orange peel with bitter aromatic flavors. This is probably one of the strangest mouth adventures I’ve been on since it was almost nothing like I expected. The peel was sweet but still had the bite of a traditional citrus fruits and the flesh of the fruit was delightfully sour. That part was over quickly though since the fruit is very small and I went back to the creamy sweet flavor of the peel. I would love to chop some of these babies up with some mint, red onion, crushed red pepper and vinegar to serve over almond crusted tofu.

I did end up doing something awesome with this for dinner but that’s for another night.

This is Christie, signing off!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Feb 15 2012
4 Comments
Recipes, Snacks

So Easy, I Made a Clever Name For It

I decided to call them Croc Eyes. The ingredients are so effing simple it’s silly. But when vegan snack attacks call, avocados are the answer.

Whachu Need :
Avocado
Balsamic Vinegar
Garlic Salt

Preparation :
1) Cut the avocado in half, remove pit.
2) Sprinkle garlic salt, fill pit hole with vinegar.
3) Eat it with a spoon. Like a boss.

Really, the main event is the avocado. You can garnish it however you please, or not at all. Point is  avocados are really good for you, and their mild flavor makes it easy to dress up.

Finding a Good Avocado

So, there’s not much to make this delicious snack. If you’re looking for a good avocado, there are some easy steps to follow. Organic is a good first step, as with all veggies, but if you can’t do that, at least you’re consuming them. To check how ripe they are, push down on the stem. If there’s some give, you got a good avocado. Keep in mind that an avocado may need to ripen a day or so before it’s really good. And if you cut it open and there are a couple spots of brown/black, don’t sweat it. That there is from people squeezing it to make sure it’s ripe. That’s why you should push the stem 🙂

Tagged , , , , ,
Feb 14 2012
4 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes

Portobello Tacooooh yeaaaah!

I love tacos. Who doesn’t? Except for communists, of course. Just kidding. I know communists love tacos too. Anyways, I’m making some fajita-style portobello mushrooms and I’m going to stuff them into some corn tortillas. I do recommend the flour sort because you can stuff more into them but I have this whole concept of avoiding gluten for my gastric health. Personal problems aside, you might want to gather together some toppings: diced bell peppers, Daiya pepperjack cheese, seasoned black beans, salsa, hot sauce and guacamole are among my personal favorites. Follow your heart… to TACOS!For the portobello fajita filling (for 1-2 people), assemble the following:

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

3 portobello mushrooms, cut into strips
1/2 cup onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
3 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
juice from 1/2 lime
1 serrano pepper or jalapeno, minced (optional, for spice)
flour or corn tortillas
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and sauté 5 minutes or until almost tender.

Add onion and garlic. Reduce heat to medium, and cook for 4 minutes or until the onion becomes translucent, stirring frequently.

Remove from heat; stir in cilantro, lime juice, salt, and peppers. I used jalapeño peppers. I keep a bag of them in my freezer, tops cut off. They keep really well that way. I cut them after they’ve thawed partially.

Spoon about 1/4 cup mushroom mixture down center of each tortilla. Add whatever toppings you like: the more the merrier. Roll up. Insert into mouth and enjoy!

I add some shredded soy cheese, hot sauce, bell pepper and wrapped it in a lightly toasted corn tortilla. This is a perfect treat for a Saturday evening game or a Wednesday night fight. You’ll have to scale up my recipe but this is social food to enjoy with good friends (though I think all good food is made better by good company.)

This is Christie, signing off.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →