Tag Archives: health

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 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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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 21 2011
3 Comments
Thoughts

It All Started With That Third Piece of Chicken

I am not a vegan. I am not a vegetarian. I am not an animal rights activist.

I love meat. I love cheese. I love fast food. I once went a whole month without eating a single piece of fruit.

Until a week ago, my diet was horrible. I overloaded on Halloween candy, potato chips, and deep-fried goodness. Fruits and vegetables were missing from my diet. I ate way more than I should have. Maybe it was psychological, like I was eating emotionally. Maybe I was just really hungry. I knew I was eating too much, but I couldn’t help myself… until, finally, I could.

I decided on Monday that I was going to avoid dairy. I also decided to eat more fruits and veggies. I only ate meat for one meal a day. I haven’t had any meat for the past two days.

I never thought I could go without meat. Even during Lent when, as a Catholic, I don’t eat meat on Fridays, I have had difficulty. I tried to give up dairy once before and was horrified to realize that I ate cheese in some form or another EVERY DAY.

There’s a sense of accomplishment that comes with knowing that, if I put my mind to it, I CAN make better food choices. I can live without dairy. I can live without meat or fish for a few days. I can even live without eggs.

Finding meatless and dairy-free ways to get nutrition has become a fun exercise. I’ve tried new recipes, new food products, and have found a culinary creativity in myself that I didn’t know I had.

So that’s what this blog is about: trying new recipes and foods and overcoming the desire (yes, desire) to have unhealthy foods. It’s only been a week. It’s possible that I could abandon this healthier diet. But I don’t want to! And I’m looking forward to learning how focusing on a plant-based, dairy-free diet will change me physically and emotionally.

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