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 12 2011
4 Comments
Desserts

Strawberry crisp: delicious, easy, healthy… what’s not to like?

I went strawberry picking with some friends Sunday. You might ask, “it’s the middle of December and you’re doing WHAT!?” It’s Florida, our weather is so good it’s criminal.
I’m going to make a quick note about sugar before we start. You might notice that I haven’t listed granulated sugar in any of the recipes I’ve submitted to this forum. It’s always molasses, agave nectar, etc. The granulated sugar that you buy at the supermarket isn’t vegan. It’s bleached using the charred bones of animals. If that wasn’t icky enough, brown sugar is granulated white sugar mixed with molasses. WTF?
Anyways, other available sweeteners have unique flavors and nutrients that are removed from granulated sugar during processing. For example, I use molasses for most of my sugar needs. I like that it comes from plants and has iron in it. Girls need a little extra iron, right? Ounce for ounce, molasses has almost 3 times the iron of beef and none of the cholesterol. Black strap molasses has a unique earthy flavor robust enough to eat drizzled over plain tofu. I also like maple syrup because it’s delicious and promotes preservation of old growth forests. It has a light woody flavor that’s great for cookies and cakes. Sometimes I get granulated coconut sugar at my farmer’s market. It’s lightly fragrant and creamy in flavor. I’m a big fan of agave and rice nectar: both have low glycemic indexes and a light mellow honey-like flavor but it’s beginning to sound like all unrefined sugars are my favorite. Let’s talk strawberry crisp. In this recipe I used turbinado sugar (which is actually semi-refined sugar) but granulated coconut or maple sugar work fine.
You can use any kind of sweet non-citrus fruit for this recipe as far as I’m concerned. Frozen or fresh – it doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s ripe. I’ve done this with peaches, apples, blueberries, and today I’m using strawberries.
5 cups fresh fruit, pitted and sliced (I like to leave the peel on but you can take it off)
2 tbsp turbinado sugar
2 tbsp corn starch, tapioca flour or arrowroot starch
juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tsp)
I just mixed them directly in a glass baking dish
For the topping,
1 cup quinoa flakes or rolled oats
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (granulated maple or coconut sugar are fine too but harder to find)
1/2 cup flour (I used rice but whatever kind you like)
almond milk to texture
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
cinnamon or pumpkin spice to taste
In a medium sized bowl, stir the dry ingredients together.
Work the olive oil in, and then the almond milk. Stop adding when it starts to get crumbly. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit and bake 375F/190C, for 30 to 35 minutes, until the fruit is tender and the topping starts to brown.
Serve hot and enjoy! Soy or coconut milk ice cream is an excellent compliment.
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Dec 11 2011
4 Comments
Recipes

A Breakfast Date With Quinoa

I am entering week 5 of going vegan, and it is just now that I am starting to really miss the convenience and ease of making eggs for breakfast. Tofu scrambles are a fine alternative, but I was fresh out of tofu this morning and felt mild depression at the thought of having plain toast or fruit. Christie posted a recipe for Quinoa Pudding a few months ago on her Facebook page and I thought today would be the perfect day to try it out. I had to get creative, though, because I was missing one of the key ingredients. So, here is my variation on Christie’s original quinoa pudding recipe.

1 cup quinoa
2 cups almond milk
6-8 dates, pits removed
walnuts (optional)
water

Rinse the quinoa well and cook. I won’t get much more specific here since I cook quinoa in a rice cooker… follow the directions on the package. Using a rice cooker also allowed me to do everything else without having to keep an eye on the quinoa.

You may want to soften the dates before you start the next step: I took 7 dates, warmed them in a shallow bowl with some water for about 20 seconds to soften them, and then I removed the pits. Using a food processor or blender, mix together the dates and almond milk until smooth. I only had one 8 oz package of almond milk, so I added a 1/2 cup of water into the mix. The mixture was really sweet as-is, so I didn’t add any sweeteners.

Add the mixture to the cooked quinoa. Stir gently over medium heat until it’s creamy, about 10 minutes.

While it’s heating up, take a handful of crushed walnuts and then added it to the mix if you’d like. I used the bottom of a glass to crush the walnuts I had.

Remove from heat and eat it warm!  I wish I had more almond milk so that it would have come out more creamy. My Dad had some and added some regular milk to it (I grew up adding evaporated milk to my oatmeal). Sprinkle cinnamon or add raisins to make it more fun.

P.S. I was never a fan of dates, which may explain why I am still single… oh, wait. Wrong blog. I was never a fan of dates until I started using them in recipes. Now, I sort of love them!

If you’ve got vegan breakfast recipes or ideas that you’d like to share, head on over to the contact page and let us know! Til then, happy cooking. –Melissa

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Dec 08 2011
1 Comment
Recipes

Eggplant is My Savior

This post was supposed to be about my first experience with tempeh. I was going to tell you all about the delicious tempeh tacos I made. So, what happened? Mold happened. Gross, gross mold. All over my tempeh. I was pretty darn disappointed, but I didn’t want to cave in and eat something non-vegan. Thankfully, there was roasted eggplant in the fridge. I thought about making eggplant tacos instead, but I was just darn hungry. Using some of the other things I found in my fridge, I came up with  Eggplant Tapenade on Baguette Surprise.

There are three basic ingredients in ETBS: olive tapenade, roasted Chinese eggplant, and baguette. I had store-bought green olive tapenade. It’s TASSOS brand and it’s vegan and all-natural. “Roasting” an eggplant in my house basically means sticking it in the broiler and then removing the skin. Easy peasey. First things first. Cut the baguette to your liking and stick it in the oven or toaster oven. I do this because the bread gets more toasty as it cools off and I do want it to be cooled off before I stick the eggplant surprise on it.

Cut up the eggplant and add a tablespoon or so of the tapenade. If the eggplant is roasted to limpy-ness, it should be easy to mash with a fork. Mix it together. I didn’t add anything to the mix, but next time I’ll add salt, black pepper, minced garlic, maybe some minced onion, and Sriracha.

Once I was done mixing up the eggplant and tapenade, my toasts were done. I decided to add some soy mozza cheese. Way to go, Melissa! This really made a difference. Side note: Do you like my cheese slicer? I think it’s one of the greatest things ever and truly believe that every cheese lover should have one.

Um… DELICIOUS!!! This turned out to be an extremely satisfying dinner!

xoxo and eat more eggplant! -Melissa

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Dec 07 2011
4 Comments
Main Dishes

WTF is moussaka!? (kinda like lasagna but not…)

The final product in this recipe fell apart and wasn’t ready for it’s close-up, Mr. DeMille. I thought about scrapping it and waiting until the next time I made it but then I put it in my mouth and realized it would be criminal not to share.

I bought this bad boy at my farmer’s market. It’s an “heirloom zebra eggplant” or so the sign said. For this recipe, any eggplant will do. Moussaka is a dish I was introduced to by a Greek friend. She’s from Cyprus so my recipe might have a different flare than you’re used to. I learned to make this dish with cream and lamb. There’ll be none of that today. Moussaka is kind of like lasagna: it’s comfort food layered with eggplant (or zucchini), meat, potatos, and mushrooms and then smothered with a bechamel cream sauce. But like I said… no meat or cream. This recipe is comfort food with fiber, protein, lutein, vitamin C, and enough other nutrients to make your mom proud. Okay, get a load of this.

1 eggplant, sliced longwise, 1/4-1/3 inch thick and soaked at least 4 hours in lightly salted water (zucchini also works and you don’t have to soak it)
1/4 cup bread-crumbs or blanched almond flour
For the filling…
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1-2 chopped soy sausages (optional, or you can use my black-eyed pea burger *winkyface*)
1/2 onion, diced
1 chopped tomato or 1/3 cup canned diced tomato
2-3 tbsp tomato paste
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp sage
salt and pepper to taste
Combine the onion and garlic in a medium frying pan. Sautee over medium-high heat until the onions begin to become tranlucent. Then astir in the sage.
Add the rest of the ingredients and set heat to medium-low, stirring occasionally while the mushrooms cook down and get tender and allowing some of the moisture to evaporate.
Make the bechamel sauce while this happens. No pictures… it just looks like ranch dressing.
‘bechamel’ sauce
1 box silken tofu
1 tbsp onion salt
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 dash of lemon juice
1 pinch of nutmeg
salt to taste
Combine all the ingredients for the bechamel sauce in a blender or food processor. Mix until smooth and creamy.
Preaheat the oven to 350C/175F. Coat your pan lightly with olive oil. Cover the bottom of the dish with half the bread-crumbs or almond flour (I used almond flour). Add a layer of eggplant, overlapping if necessary (you can sautee it lightly first if you want it extra tender but it can make them harder to work with and I like mine a little chewier), the mushroom/soy sausage filling, another layer of eggplant and top with the bechamel sauce and the rest of the almond flour or bread-crumbs.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the moussaka begins to bubble.
EAT IT!
This is Christie, signing off. I’m full.
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Dec 07 2011
3 Comments
Main Dishes, Recipes

Delicious/Disgusting Bachelor Chow

Here’s the deal : I like mixing different food together to make something new. Ultimately, it looks unappetizing, inedible. I don’t care because it’s me eating it.

This is why writing for this blog is going to be decidedly difficult.

When I first started going vegan with by better half, I hit the same wall all soon-to-be-vegans do : WTF can you eat that doesn’t have meat or dairy in it? My go-to was rice.

Rice is deceptively easy to cook if you treat it tenderly and with respect. I prefer brown rice which is harder to cook for some, mostly because it takes longer to cook. And I must admit that it took (and is taking) a lot of trial and error to get the texture right. But the result is healthier than white rice.

Regardless of which kind of rice you choose to cook, rice by itself is pretty effing dull. Granted, you’ll get some basic nutrition out of it, but without loading up on soy sauce it can pretty much suck. Especially when you eat it every. night. like I did when I was first going vegan.

My solution to the boring rice problem was Bachelor Chow.

No, it’s not the dog food you see on Futurama. Rather, it’s a mix of things that can be super easy to cook, and winds up giving you an extraordinary amount of nutrition. Then I proceed to make it into junkfood with the things I add to it.

Let’s begin with the ground-level edition of BachChow, shall we?

BACHELOR CHOW

~6 Cups Water
1 Cup Brown Rice
1 Cup Quinoa
1/2 Cup Lentils

Estimated prep/cooking time ~50 minutes

Get a pot big enough to furnish ~7-8 Cups of material. Drop your water in there, and bring it to a full boil. Dump the rice, quinoa, and lentils all into the boiling water. Wait until the water starts to act all uppity and try to boil over, and drop the burner head down to medium heat (a little above medium is sufficient). Now, you play the waiting game.

With rice, you shouldn’t have to stir it to make it do its thing. Just let the boiling water do the work. Wait a half hour, and then return to the pot. If it still has water, let it boil another 5 minutes or so. But once holes start appearing in the mixture, that’s when it’s go time (Read : Get ready to make sure you don’t lose your batch of Bach to the burn deities).

Get your wooden spoon and go around the edges of the mixture to keep it from sticking. Then go from the outside of the pan in, so you scrape the bottom of the pot. If you feel resistance or a bumpy texture at the bottom of the pan, quickly go around the pot outside-inning until you ensure there is no stickage at the bottom of the pot. Turn off the heat. Note that there may be a little teensy-weensy bit of water left in the bottom of the pot. That’s totally cool. Just let the rice absorb what’s left of it.

Now you should have baseline BachChow. It has some fiber, some carbs, some aminos, some iron.  The rice should be soft, the lentils should be squishy, and the quinoa should make the dish look like a bunch of tiny sperm and egg exploded. It’s pretty damn good as it is. But you may want to add some flavor.

Below are some suggestions on how to spice up your BachChow to make it look horrific, and make it taste amazing.

Things you may want :
Daiya grated cheese (Mozzarella and Cheddar)
Garlic salt
Liquid Aminos
Hot Sauce (Tapatio, Cholula, Sriracha)
Tempeh

I’m not saying you need to mix all of the above into the BachChow. But I’m not saying you can’t, either. I like to add Liquid Aminos, hot sauce, and Daiya at the minimum. If you want to add some meaty texture, make some tempeh strips and drop them in there. Garlic salt can be a gangster addition, but some freshly diced garlic is a healthier choice.

Frankly, BachChow is something you should experiment with. Add veggies, add other sauces, add tomato sauce. Do what feels right. You may end up making an earth shattering mixture that is deceptively easy to make and reproduce.

Good luck with your BachChow.

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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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Dec 05 2011
1 Comment
Thoughts

Culinary Adventures

When most people think about going vegan they think to themselves “WTF am I going to eat?” No pizza, no burgers, no burritos, no BLT, no cheesy fries, no milkshakes; it’s all off the menu. I had that sensation when I learned that I was allergic to gluten, the protein in wheat. No pasta, no bread, no cake, no cookies, nothing battered and fried. After I moped for a few weeks eating only cheese, cashews and dried cranberries (poor me, right?) I started to branch out. I started to discover foods I’d never tried before. I started cooking for myself. I learned substitutes. I started reading labels. I started thinking about exactly what it was I was putting in my body.

A friend of mine who also has Celiac’s disease said, “It’s impossible to have a food allergy and not be obsessed with food.” I agree with her.

When I realized that my conscience wouldn’t allow me to rationalize eating animals and their reproductive secretions, I was surprised by a pang of glee, knowing I would embark on another adventure and learn more foods I’d never tried. I realize my personality would have caused me to explore anyways, but eliminating a handful of commonplace foods (not unlike when I was forced to skip something as ubiquitous as wheat) meant I could explore the alternatives with gusto.

At my farmer’s market this weekend I got some strange fruits. The little yellow ones are called egg fruit (hopefully a reference to their size and shape) and the big green one is called black sapote or chocolate fruit. I’ve never tried either before. I’ll let you know how this little adventure goes. Let me know what new thing you try because you decided to enact “Meatless Monday” or just to have a vegetarian or vegan meal just for the fun of it.

This is Christie, signing off.

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Dec 04 2011
5 Comments
Desserts, Recipes

Raw Cheesecake Experiment #1

Confession: I think I am a failure when it comes to baking. I burn cookies. I don’t keep cakes in the oven long enough. Pastries fall apart. Things that are supposed to be firm are simply goop. So I was pretty excited when I heard about raw cheesecake – not necessarily because it’s vegan, but because it is a no-bake dessert. I first had raw cheesecake when I went to the Chicago Diner while Christie was in town. I was blown away by how creamy and tasty it was and then even more blown away knowing that it was a raw food. I always thought, “hmm, I should try making some raw cheesecake,” but it wasn’t until I started this blog that I had the motivation to do so.

I visited what seems like several web sites to come up with my own raw cheesecake recipe. Here are the ingredients I used for Raw Cheesecake Experiment #1. Make sure you read this entire post as there are certain things I will definitely change about the ingredients/measurements the next time I make this.

For the crust:
1 cup almonds
12 dates, softened

For the filling:
3 cups raw cashews, soaked
2/3 cup lemon juice
2/3 cup agave nectar
2/3 cup coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

Before you do anything, measure out the cashews and soak them in water. I soaked them for one hour. Longer than that is probably much better. Some sites say to do it overnight, others didn’t mention soaking them at all. When I make raw cheesecake #2, I think I will try to soak them for 3-4 hours. Another to-do before you begin is to take your jar of coconut oil and stick it in a bowl of hot water so that it’s melted by the time you need it.

Start by making the crust. Soften the dates first by steaming them for a few minutes, and then remove the seeds if needed. Then, combine the almonds and dates using a food processor. Now, I adore my mini food processor. It has never let me down. Then again, I have never jammed almonds and sticky dates into it. I’m still not sure what the most efficient method is for combining these without wanting to give up, but I eventually ended up with a good result. More confession time: I used almonds because I saw one recipe that used them and I already had them. Next time, I’m going with pecans or walnuts.

The mixture should be tasty and a bit sticky. Get your favorite cheesecake pan (8″ is ideal, the pan I used was too big). Take the crust mixture and press it down into the pan. Try to make it as smooth and uniform in height as possible. I like using the bottom of a measuring cup to help with that sort of thing.

Now, grab the rest of your ingredients and mix them together in a blender, using the water as needed. A lot of the recipes I saw called for a 1:1:1 ratio for the lemon juice, coconut oil, and agave nectar. Next time, I am cutting down on the lemon juice as my cheesecake came out a bit tart for my taste (my brother said it was more like ‘key lime pie’ instead of ‘cheese’cake). You should end up with a thick mixture that you can easily pour and smooth into the pan over your crust. Put the cheesecake in the fridge or freezer to set for at least one hour.

This cheesecake was kid-approved! It tasted great plain, but I also tried it with some chocolate syrup and topped with pomegranate seeds. I imagine it would be great with the cherry topping that Christie made for her ‘cheese’cake.

I wish I had pictures of the other steps in the process, but my hands were really sticky from the dates and I was cursing in the kitchen from how challenging this recipe ended up being, so I wasn’t exactly in the picture-taking mood. At any rate, this was a great learning experience for me, and I’m eager to try again and make it more interesting: add cinnamon, fruit, cocoa to the filling… if you have ramekins, you can easily make individual cheesecakes if you’re having a dinner party or just want to be fancy.

Raw cheesecake is a great dessert. It’s healthy, and no animals had to die in order for me to make it. Plus, it’s soy- and gluten-free in addition to being vegan. If you’re in Chicago and not up for making your own, definitely check it out at The Chicago Diner.

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Dec 03 2011
11 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes

Who can live without burgers? Not this girl.

Okay, I love sausage and burgers. I just hate that they’re full of stuff that’s not very good for you like cholesterol and lots of fat and that animals have to die to make them. This is a recipe I’m still working on but it’s more than good enough to share. To make my black-eyed pea burgers (taste better than they sound, promise) you’ll need to combine the following in a large bowl.

2 cups/15.5 oz tin of black-eyed peas (field peas also work), drained and set the liquid aside
2 tbsp tapioca, potato, or arrowroot starch
2 tbsp flour (I use oat but whatever kind you like)
2 tbsp rolled oats or quinoa
2 tbsp flax meal (optional)
1/4 very finely chopped mushrooms
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1.5 tbsp Italian seasoning (if you don’t like your sausages spicy, I recommend herbes de Provence instead)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp coriander seeds
garlic salt to taste
hot sauce to taste
oil for frying

Once everything is in the bowl except for the garlic salt and hot sauce, start mooshing. This might be a great job for any children in the house, it’s fun and can be done with your hands. Add the liquid from the canned peas until the mixture is doughy and somewhat dry but not crumbly. You shouldn’t have to add very much.

When it starts to look uniform (as above ) take a taste. Don’t worry, there’s no risk of E. coli or Salmonella, it’s not meat! Start adding hot sauce and garlic salt and continue mooshing until it tastes right to you. When you like the flavor and texture, pick up a good handful of the mixture and form it into a patty shape. This recipe should make 3 generous patties for a regular sized bun. They won’t shrink much during cooking because there’s no lard to dribble off into the pan leaving you with an emaciated burger.

I prefer to bake mine at 350F/175C for 25 minutes or until crispy outside and still mooshy inside but you can pan fry them in olive oil to the same effect if you’re feeling decadent. I like that these are fat and cholesterol free but mostly because my Dad and sister have high cholesterol and I’m sure they’re not alone.

I toasted my buns and melted my cheese for the last 2-3 minutes of the bake. This cheese is Daiya. They sell 5 lb. blocks and shreds. Yeah, I admit it. I have a 5 lb. block of non-dairy cheese in my fridge. I’m not ashamed of my 5 lb. block of non-dairy cheese. Daiya is the best cheese substitute I’ve found for cooking. It’s great in quesadillas, on ‘burgers’, for mac and cheese, pretty much anything you can think of… okay, that’s my Daiya plug. There are other non-dairy cheese that I like but that’s another blog post.

Did I mention that you can refrigerate these burgers for 2-3 days until your ready to cook them up or freeze them for up to 3 weeks? Yeah. You can. Also, the buns came from the Zen Cat Bakery (http://zencatbakery.com/) a gluten-free and vegan bakery. They are also awesome and make gluten-free vegan brownies that can defeat my PMS with a single bite!

This didn’t last long. If you try it, would you let me know how it goes? Here’s to your healthy burger!!!

this is Christie, signing off.. to eat another guilt free burger.

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