Tag Archives: gluten-free

Hemp Cheese

I’ve been making cashew cheese for months now but wanted to try this with hemp seeds (nutrition data pictured at left). Hemp is a much more sustainable seed product than cashews or almonds mostly because they use less water to grow, ounce for ounce and has twice the protein for about the same amount of fat, Hemp is also rich in omega fatty acids and iron. This is also suitable for most people with nut allergies as well as soy-and dairy sensitivities. To make this cheesy spread I combined

1 cup of hemp seeds

juice from 1 lemon

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 generous pinch of salt

2-3 tbsp of water

I then blended the mixture until it was creamy. This took a while but the end product was worth it. We ended up with a lightly sweet cheesy spread. I suspect you could also bake it to make a harder cheese like I normally do with cashew cheese. I was feeling peckish and impatient so that didn’t happen.

You can also add your favorite vegan pesto spread for a pesto spread, some herbes de provence, dairy-free ranch seasoning or whatever your favorite dip is.

It’s great on our home-made gluten-free vegan bread or in combination with a sprinkle of fresh herbs on crackers. It also makes a great high protein pasta sauce. Let me know if you get to try it!

This is Christie signing off!

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Vegan Beer : New Planet’s 3R Raspberry Ale

What up thugs and thugettes? We’re back with our fourth installment of vegan beer reviews. In this post we take a look at New Planet’s 3R Raspberry Ale. It’s Barnivore approved, and pretty freaking tasty!

Enjoy. And from Brent and Christie, peace out, my vegans.

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Crazy Easy Three Bean Chili and a Giveaway!

Three bean vegan chili is nothing to sneeze at when we make it. Before I talk about chili though, I’m going to tell you about Muir Glen – I’ve been using their organic canned tomatoes for years.

I grew up farming and tomatoes have a special place in my heart. In fact I’m a tomato snob. I usually turn my nose up at tomatoes in the supermarket and in restaurants because they’ve lost their flavor through refrigeration, artificial ripening techniques, and through selective breeding for other traits like improved shelf life. Subsequently I turn to canned varieties unless I can get good ones from my garden or from my farmer’s market. Muir Glen has a range of organic tomato products including their roasted diced tomatoes, tomato paste and regular diced tomatoes. Whatever they’re doing over there definitely makes a difference and this is a giveaway so you can see for yourself without spending your hard earned cash.

Back to chili. Tomatoes are important for chili recipes. I can’t imagine chili without them: they provide a crisp base and a source of important nutrients like lycopene and vitamin C. To begin we assembled the following:

1 onion, diced

1 jalapeño, minced

1 cube vegetable bouillon

1 tsp cumin

1 tbsp coriander

1 15oz. tin of pinto beans

1 15oz. tin of kidney beans

1 15oz. tin of black beans

1 15oz. tin of diced tomatoes

1 15oz. tin roasted diced tomatoes

1 cup TVP (use a 15oz. tin of pumpkin puree if you’re sensitive to soy or both if you want a mellower chili)

1 tsp flake red pepper (more if you like spicy food)

salt to taste

1 tsp olive oil

We sauteed the onion, jalapeño and spices and sauteed it in olive oil until the mixture was fragrant and steamy.

Then we added the tomatoes and heated them until it started to bubble.

Then I added the rest of the ingredients (don’t drain the liquid from the beans or tomatoes). I added both TVP and pumpkin. That’s just how I roll. After it was nice and hot, I adjusted the spices and served up topped with Daiya and some home made bread.

This is a flavorful chili that will fool a lot of meat eaters with how hearty it is. The roasted tomatoes add an additional depth of flavor that you can’t get just by adding liquid smoke. The textured vegetable protein will confuse a lot of vegans because it’s so meaty. It’s cholesterol-free, high in fiber and low in fat.
So now on to the giveaway. This is a promo by Muir Glen: they’re going to send you a 14.5 oz can Reserve Harvest Sunset Organic Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, a 14.5 oz can Reserve Harvest Sunset Organic Diced Tomatoes, a 14.5 oz can Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies, a 14.5 oz can Muir Glen Organic No-Salt Added Diced Tomatoes and recipe booklet featuring a variety of recipes created by award-winning chefs from around the country. Of course you’ll only need the recipe book for using the other cans of tomatoes because you’ll want 2 of them for my recipe.

In order for me to select winners, all you have to do is the following:

1. like and follow our blog

2. like us on FaceBook

3. comment below on what you use tinned tomatoes for most often in your kitchen

Then I’ll ask each of the randomly selected winners (5 in total) to email us their mailing address before midnight Sunday, October 14. I’m excited to pass on some free products that I’ve been enjoying for years so that I can be sure I’m not crazy for liking Muir Glen.

This is Christie, signing off.

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No Need to Knead Gluten-free Vegan Bread

I’m going to start this post by thanking 2 bloggers who have inspired me to take a stab at vegan baking. Somer of Vedged Out and recently featured on Forks over Knives and an Unrefined Vegan who has organized Virtual Vegan Potlucks have tickled my eyes, nose, mind and mouth in the best kind of way. They are two bloggers who seem to bake effortlessly. Vegan baking is certainly a nuanced thing but if any of you are experienced with baking gluten-free know that these recipes require lots and lots of eggs. So what’s a girl to do when she wants bread without gluten or eggs?

For baking bread today I’m using ground flax seeds. Flax is full of omega fatty acids and other important nutrients but practically speaking they’re also loaded with long chain polysaccharides that make it a great binding agent. With chicken eggs, protein forms the binding agent along with lots of cholesterol and recent studies bolster the claim that eggs are worse for your body than smoking. I don’t want that in my body so flax it is! Combine your ground flax seeds with water half an hour before baking (mix well) and you’ll notice the gelatinous texture that will help hold your bread together forming in your container. To start, we assembled the following ingredients

1 3/4 cups gluten-free all purpose flour (I’m using Bob’s Red Mill)
1/8 cup oats
1/8 cup quinoa flakes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp agar agar or suitable vegan gelling agent
1/4 cup lightly packed coconut sugar
5 tbsp flax meal in 1/2 cup of water (mix well and allow to sit for 20-30 minutes)
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons almond milk or other vegan alternative
1 tbsp active dry yeast (no need to put it in water first, seriously)

First, Brent combined all the dry ingredients in a large bowl including the yeast.
In another bowl, I combined the vegan milk, oil and flax “eggs”. It looked kind of gross.


I added the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Beat the batter until smooth. This can be done with a stand or hand mixer, but I like to use my Brent for this; his muscles are amazing. The batter should be thick but not doughy.


I sprayed a non-stick pan with olive oil. Then I poured the batter into the bread pan and sprinkled the top of the batter with sunflower seeds and buckwheat groats. You can also sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds.

We set it aside to rise for about 50 minutes or until the batter was peeking above the rim of the pan.


We baked it in a 375°F pre-heated oven for 50 minutes; until a toothpick comes out clean. We let it cool for 15 minutes. Then we removed from the pan and cool thoroughly on a rack. A glass pan might be better for next time.


As a first effort to bake gluten-free and vegan in about a year and a half, I’m pleased. The texture of the bread was good, lightly crispy outside and fluffy inside. I have had problems in the past with vegan gluten-free breads being far too dense for my taste.

The taste was lightly sweet and nutty but nothing special. Next time I plan to add some nutritional yeast or carob and maca powder and Braag’s aminos to bring out more of the flavors in all those grains and seeds. Quinoa, flax, sunflower seeds, buckwheat groats, rice, sorghum, oats and almonds make for awesome bread.

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

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Vegan Beer : New Planet’s Tread Lightly Ale

Hey gang! Back again for the third installment of our vegan beer vlog posts, we sample New Planet’s Tread Lightly Ale. New Planet is another awesome company who found their niche in making gluten-free beers. Be sure to check them out.

As always, check to see if your booze is vegan at Barnivore, like the awesome vegan you are / want to be!

From Brent and Christie, peace out, my vegans!

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It’s a Miracle!

Let me begin by saying that this post was supposed to be a review of a vegan frozen pizza until I read the finer print and realized that the pizza contained milk protein. Darn! I ate the pizza because I didn’t want to waste it, but I was seriously disappointed.

I found some consolation in a sweet treat: the Chocolate Almond Butter Miracle Tart by Hail Merry:

I have seen this several times but never bought it because, well… it’s not cheap. Having made my own raw desserts, I think the price is perfectly reasonable, but I couldn’t justify the investment until I made the mistake of going to the grocery store while on a crazy salty/sweet craving binge.

The tart itself is beautiful and dense. It’s not greasy and the best way to eat it was to just pick it up and take a bite out of it. I could definitely taste the coconut oil in the product and the almond butter was delicious. The tarts are small, but they’re perfect for sharing: there are three servings in one tart. I felt myself wanting more of a sweeter chocolate taste. For that reason, I don’t think I will buy this particular flavor anytime soon. There was a lemon tart that I am curious enough to try sometime.

Have you tried any Hail Merry products? What did you think? Let us know in the comments! –Melissa

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The other Lazy Vegans: TV dinner…

There’s always something off-putting about the concept of a TV dinner: a pre-packaged tray of unrecognizable goo that you take out of the freezer and pop into the microwave before being distracted from what’s in it by the latest episode of Mad Men. This post is about that style of meal.

Amy’s tamale with roasted vegetables caught my attention as I looked for Amy’s vegan gluten-free burritos (a perennial favorite snack food for that man I love). I love Mexican food and found the picture on the package appealing. It also has the rest of the key words that lure consumers like myself in; it announces that the product contains organic ingredients and is dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free and soy-free.

Taking this baby out of the package brought up some deeply repressed childhood memories. I also realized it might vaguely resemble the picture on the front once warmed and plopped onto a plate.

One of the reasons that I like Amy’s burritos is that there’s not a lot of packaging for the amount of food. This had a lot of packaging for the amount of food. I rationalized that I would be sating some water by eating it right out of the dish in which it was frozen.It wasn’t an unpleasant experience but the food did little more for me than sit quietly in the microwave safe plate. I added some fresh cilantro, powdered cumin, garlic salt and some Tapatio’s hot sauce and that definitely gave the meal some personality.

It was filling, contained unobjectionable ingredients and had some decent nutrition information. I’d probably buy it again but know I’d make something better myself at home. That isn’t the point though; this is a quick easy meal with good ingredients and nutritional details for something that comes from the frozen food section. Amy’s makes a lot of great gluten-free and vegan products (and their website has some great tools for figuring it out without condemning you to the tedium of reading every box)

What’s your favorite frozen dinner? I’d love to hear more and better options.

This is Christie, signing off!

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Vegan Beer : Green’s Dubbel Dark Ale

Hey gang! We liked making the first video so much, we made a second. In this post, we review Green’t Dubbel Dark Ale. It’s freaking delicious.

Don’t forget to check if what you’re drinking is vegan at Barnivore!

From Brent and Christie, peace out, my vegans.

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Fajita Pizza

I’ll have to start in advance by thanking the ZenCat Bakery for the pizza crust but the rest was all about what we had in the refrigerator. There wasn’t any traditional pizza or pasta sauce but we did have some salsa so I knew what we had to do.

I started by sauteing a chopped onion with a diced jalapeño, chopped garlic and some flake red pepper. When the onion began to soften I added some soy curls that Brent prepared with some Brag’s amino acids and cayenne pepper.

I sauteed them until the extra liquid from the soy curls was absorbed. I seasoned it with a little additional onion powder, cumin, coriander, a touch of garlic salt and some garlic powder.

I topped the crust with some salsa and then my fajita mix and then some more salsa. We topped it with Daiya mozzarella (though pepper-jack might have been better) and then I baked it according to Zen Cat bakery’s instructions.

It’s good to have frozen pizza crusts around. It’s a great way for us to have whatever veggies in the fridge that need munching and it’s faster than making pasta. This pizza disappeared quickly and Brent’s face lit up at the possibility of doing it again. We will…

 

This is Brent and Christie, signing off.

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Healthy Desserts

I don’t worry much about Brent and I getting enough nutrients but I rarely skip and opportunity to make sure we’re getting enough iron and B vitamins. I learned about this product from a friend who had cervical cancer. When chemo destroyed her red blood cell count, she relied on FloraDix (or the gluten-free version, FloraVital) to improve her blood stats.

It did and in a hurry. Within 2 weeks she was considered healthy enough to continue her treatments and today (7 years later) she’s alive and well with no recurrences in sight. While this is merely anecdote, it’s good to know that an iron and vitamin B supplement can be gentle enough for someone who routinely suffers from nausea and effective.

So what does this have to do with Turning Veganese? Smoothies! I put a little something extra into every smoothie we drink and by ‘a little extra’ I mean anything from protein powder (from peas, of course), maca powder, carob powder, spirulina or just about anything to give it that nutrient and antioxidant kick. This is one of those nutrient and andioxidant kicks. I don’t like the idea of hiding vegetables and fortunately this doesn’t need to be hidden. It tastes fine all by itself!

Today I’m putting it into a blackberry raspberry banana orange smoothie. I know you want some. You won’t know the difference except the B vitamins make me feel like I was shot out of a cannon (in a good way).

This is Christie, signing off!

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