Monday, May 31, 2010

Chocolate Covered Coconut Thai Fried Bananas

Today we are having a neighborhood block party and everyone is supposed to bring a dish. I have chosen to somewhat invent a dish with the extra bananas we had in the house. 







 To make these, I chopped up a banana into about five sections. I then rolled them in ener-g egg replacer, but you could use a mixture of pureed banana and soymilk too. They just need to get into something sticky. Then, after they had their sticky bath I rolled them in a mixture of coconut, coconut flour, crushed graham crackers, and a small amount of rolled oats. Then, I deep fried them in vegetable oil (but they would have been great fried in coconut oil too!). I put them on a paper towel to absorb the extra oil. In a sauce pan I mixed a bag of dark chocolate (milk free) with a little soymilk, and then dripped the chocolate all over the top of these nanners. Then, we chilled them in the fridge.





As I looked upon my yummies my Emergency Room Nurse kicked in and I thought it was a bad idea to have coconut in something that didn't look like it had coconut in it...since a lot of kids are allergic to it. So, I sprinkled it on the top of them while they chilled. :) Its a win-win situation because both Jay and I love coconut!









And these are those babies!

Thursday, May 27, 2010



I have always had trouble cooking with wine, since I love using it but hate to waste an entire bottle when all I need is a few Tablespoons. :( Wine can only last about 7 days before it gets sweet and icky. SO...the other day I was lamenting over a great bottle of wine I had used to cook with that was now going bad on our counter, when I thought....I'll just freeze it into cubes! Then, whenever I want a little wine, I can pop out a few cubes and keep the rest waiting for me! I am sure this is not a novel idea...but you can do it with pretty much any liquid or sauce you want to use in the future. You can freeze pesto, homemade BBQ sauce, etc. I used our frozen wine cubes in this marinara I made.

Marinara is something so simple to make it is ridiculous to ever get it out of a jar. If you want to use your own tomatoes, just boil them and then immediately put them in an ice bath to get their little skins off...or you can used canned tomatoes. Either way, put the tomatoes (chopped or crushed up) into a saute pan with their juice and add whatever else you think is yummy. This batch of marinara had brown sugar, sea salt, red wine, fresh garlic, and a variety of herbs I chopped up out of my garden today. I think I picked basil, oregano, and rosemary. I also added olive oil to this batch. I let it simmer for about an hour while I made the flat bread to go with it.

The flat bread was a beer/brown sugar flat bread with olive oil, sea salt, basil, oregano, rosemary, green olives and kalamata olives on top. It was really really great:


This was pre-baking.


After its visit in the oven.



The flat bread recipe is below:

2 tsp of pizza yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup beer
2 Tbs brown sugar

Let the above ingredients sit in a bowl for about 10 minutes
Add 1 Tbs sea salt.
Slowly add in 4 cups of flour and 1/4-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Let this mixture sit for about 1 hour with a warm towel over the top, in a warm place.

After 1 hour, spread the dough out on a long cookie pan, and bake for 5 minutes at 400 degrees. Pull the dough out, and spread your toppings on (we used green and kalamata olives, olive oil, nutritional yeast, corn meal, and a bunch of fresh herbs with a ton of garlic and sea salt). Cook for another 15 minutes.

We had a TON of leftover flat bread, so Jay used it to make himself a sandwich using a jalepeno sauce and white bean hummus with basil. :)

In other news, we took Lulu to get her nails trimmed yesterday and had a terrible experience that ended with me prying some old bats hands off my dog and Lulu victoriously not getting any of her nails trimmed. :( Here is Lulu after her total win:


...and the two of them. Gloaters.


Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Garlic Vegan "Chili Cheese Fries"



It is entirely possible to eat really terrible food and still be a vegan. Studies show that vegans live 11 years longer (on average) than an omnivore (vegetarians live 7 years longer), and have radically lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, cancer, and hypertension. However, Oreos are vegan, and those are not healthy. Also in the "I can't believe it's vegan" section (link below) there are Krispy Kreme fruit pies, most of Duncan Hines products, Jello Pudding, most semi-sweet and dark chocolates, potato chips, french fries (except from McDonalds, where everything is fried in beef fat), etc. So, it is TOTALLY possible to be a fat, unhealthy vegan.

I am very sensitive to my diet. If I eat something with too much salt (like olives) or any wheat gluten in it I wake up with a puffy puffy face and 10 lbs of water weight. If I eat something really processed, I usually sleep 12+ hours that night. I just do not tolerate a lot of foods. This may have to do with food allergies. I also am type A blood, which I hear is the most "intolerant" blood type to most foods and also to any form of stress. Who knows. Anyhow, these are my version of "unhealthy but still healthy garlic chili cheese fries". They are baked and most of the ingredients are minimally processed. :)

You can use the potatoes in the frozen section and just bake them, but you can also cut your own potatoes and soak them in water for about 10 minutes prior to putting them in the oven. This makes them soft inside and crispy outside. These then had the "god cheese" Daiya vegan cheese made from the Cassava (wild yam) root mixed with yummy red beans. The red beans were cooked with a can of rotel tomatoes, sauteed onions/green peppers/garlic/green chilies, and olive oil. Then, on the very very top was a garlic sauce made from garlic and cilantro chopped up very fine and sauteed with olive oil. We obviously applied hot sauce very liberally. The Daiya cheese, when prepared like this, is literally indistinguishable from a random cheddar cheese. Yum. Totally quenched my craving for something unhealthy. :)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Sage, lemon, walnut wild rice and the BEST guacamole I have ever made!



This was the BEST guacamole I have ever made! Usually I am stuck between Jay (who hates tomatoes and likes his guac very smooth) and myself (I like my guac with lots of chunks and lots of tomatoes!), but this was a pleaser for both of us! It was lots of lemon juice, garlic salt, a ton of tiny heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, lots of cumin, and cayenne. Oh yum. I cut apart some corn tortillas and fried them in coconut oil. ) :) Coconut oil has gotten a bad rap in the past, but it is now a staple in many health food enthusiasts diets. For me, when I add a little coconut oil to my smoothie in the AM I have a TON of energy and a huge increase in body temperature (which reflects metabolism).

Here is some research on coconut oil: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil)

*A single-blind randomized controlled trial on children with pneumonia at the Philippine Children's Medical Center found that coconut oil accelerated the normalization of respiratory rate and resolution of crackles.[23]
*A randomized double-blind clinical trial with women exhibiting obesity found that supplementation with coconut oil promoted a reduction in obesity without causing dyslipidemia.[24]


 Coconut oil also doesn't leave a coconut taste on foods when you fry with it, it is very "light" tasting and yummy! 






Wild rice is another EXCELLENT food to eat. Many many cultures consider wild rice to be a sacred food, and its nutritional importance is definitely backed up by research. It is also not technically a rice, it is a grass. It is high in protein and also the amino acid lysine.  It is also high in potassium, phosphorus, thiamine, riboflavin, magnesium and niacin. It is also, in my opinion, the most tasty rice-type food! This wild rice was cooked with lemon, olive oil, sage, walnuts, baby portabellos and sea salt. I topped it off with some avocado :) 



This was this REALLY yummy salad I had for lunch today. It was two kinds of kale (one of them was purple! I had never seen this type of kale and I'm not sure what it is called :), and a ton of these wonderful heirloom tomatoes with tahini roasted sunflower seeds and almonds, a ton of nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt, and apple cider vinegar. I eat some sort of rendition of this salad every day. Kale is VERY healthy for you, and if you don't feel like eating it raw you can make KALE CHIPS with it! I capitalize the KALE CHIPS because they are so wonderful! Just take the kale, toss it in olive oil and whatever else you like (I use oil, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, and seasalt) and bake them until they are crispy.  They turn into little addictive chips and they are SO GOOD! Kale is a known as one of those "super anti-cancer" veggies because of its high amount of phytonutrients, along with brussel sprouts and cabbage. It also has potassium, beta-carotene, iron, maganese, LOTS of calcium, and vitamin C. 

Nutritional yeast is also VERY healthy. It is a yummy inactive yeast (so it won't cause candida). It is often used by vegans because it has this "cheesy" flavor. I am addicted to the stuff. Here is a breakdown of the nutritional facts for nutritional yeast, it is pretty incredible so if you are concerned with "mind blowing syndrome" I would not read the following: 
In ONLY ONE TBS of nutritional yeast there is:

Carbohydrates: 2% DV*
Fat: 1% DV
Sodium: 0mg
Protein: 8g (for me, that is about 20% of my Daily Value (DV))
Fiber: 16% DV
Calcium: 1% DV
Iron: 3% DV
Thiamin: 640% DV
Riboflavin: 565% DV
Niacin: 280% DV
Vitamin B6: 480% DV
Folic Acid: 60% DV
Vitamin B12: 133% DV
Biotin: 7% DV
Zinc: 21% DV
Selenium: 32% DV
Copper: 6% DV
Manganese: 5%
 

In fact, it has so many vitamins prisoners of war have actually used "home grown" nutritional yeast to prevent vitamin deficiency.


You may also wonder where I have been since I haven't posted in a while. I'm going to blame world of warcraft, although I am working on my thesis and also working full time in the ED. :) Here is my photo of what has happened to my computer since WOW came back into Jay's life: 

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Creamy Almond, Raisin, and Red Banana Quinoa Breakfast

So...I am currently at work and unable to upload pictures, but I wanted to tell you about my AMAZING breakfast I brought to work! Last night I made a big pot of a grain called Quinoa. I was introduced to this grain by my friend, Jessica, although I think it is more of a pseudograin than a true grain. The "grain" part is technically a seed...and a VERY healthy healthy seed!  Quinoa was the primary crop of the Incas prior to their colonization, and they held it in very high regards....they considered it to be a "God" grain, and this emphasis on spirtuality and the food made their conquerors uncomfortable....so they made them start growing wheat and maize instead. :(  It is much much better than corn or wheat, since it has a very high protein count for a grain (18% protein!) and it contains a balanced set of amino acids for human consumption, unlike wheat, rice, or corn. It has a ton of magnesium, iron, and fiber too!
Quinoa is so nutritious and complete it is currently "being considered as a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights!" It is also gluten free. Many people have allergies to wheat gluten but very few symptoms other than general fatigue or muscle aches...some people even find they get dark circles under their eyes when they eat wheat.
Anyhow, last night I made a big pot of quinoa (it is easier to make than a pot of rice...super super easy) and put it in a container in the fridge. Quinoa is a real chameleon....you can literally make it into so many different dishes...but this AM I decided I wanted something soothing and sweet. I heated up my quinoa with almond milk, then added red bananas, raisins, almonds, and sweet dark agave nectar. It was great! Tommorrow I am going to mix my quinoa with cashew cream, fresh berries, and agave nectar. Yum.
Quinoa is very versatile though. Sometimes I mix it with lemon, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, and green onions or chives, or you can do grape tomatoes, olives, cucumber, lemon, olive oil and red wine vinegar. :)
Update: Here is the picture of the quinoa! :)

Thursday, May 13, 2010



We did not have a very good meal tonight, in my opinion. I attempted to make a "mushroom meatloaf" that was much tastier in my imagination than it was in reality. :( Boo. I will attempt to remake this, but maybe not with mushrooms, or at least as many. It was overkill on those shroomies and I love them, so that is saying something. :(

So, instead, I decided to post what I WISH we had for dinner. This was a meal we had a long time ago. Both of us LOVE tomato soup, so we had some fire roasted tomato soup with a walnut cream, fresh cilantro, and homemade bread crumbs sauteed in olive oil. We also had a mixed green salad with walnuts, apples, red onions, and an apple cider vinaigrette. Oh Yum. Much much better than a mushroom meatloaf!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

OMGosh BEST BURGER EVER!

SO, I already posted today, I know! However, I just had the BEST burger of my whole life and just had to share! I picked up the "Wild Wood Organics Sproutofu Southwest Veggie Burger" and they are incredible! Here are the wonderful little goodies in a Rudi Whole Wheat Bun with tomatoes, vegenaise, spinach, and bean sprouts.


I do not even think pictures can show how AMAZING these were in my mouth! I ate one in about two minutes and want another one so bad I may drive 30 minutes to get more. Oh YUM to the 100th power.

Here is a sweet picture of Mr. Jay and sweet Gracie. Awww. Helps my new cravings.

Peanut and Spicy Chili Noodles and Stuffed Collard Greens


Oh these noodles were so good! I had a terrible craving for something like this all day long and luckily we had everything we needed to make it in the house! :)

I took about 1/2 cup peanut oil and heated it in a pan with cayenne, salt/pepper, and cashews. Then I added a small cabbage (minced), chopped white onion, 4 Tbs of chili sauce, 3 Tbs. sesame chili oil, 3 Tbs Peanut butter, and 1/2 cup soy sauce with 2 cups of vegetable broth. Then I added seven cloves of garlic and 1 Tbs ginger (both crushed). I let this simmer for about 20 minutes. For the noodles you boil a pot of water and when it is bubbly add in the Udon noodles for about 8 minutes. Drain the noodles and add your sauce concoction. If you don't like cabbage you can add zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, eggplant, carrots, etc. I kind of wish I had added more veggies! :) Top with green onions. This totally satisfied my craving!

Now onto the stuffed collard greens. I found these big, beautiful, sturdy greens at the store and just HAD to buy them and try them out. I really love spinach and kale (but hate mustard greens), and so I figured they would be yummy in olive oil, lemon and garlic steamed. BUT THEN I found an idea on fatfreevegan.com to STUFF these greens with yummies and then saute them/bake them! What a great idea!!!



These are stuffed with the McMillan taco sauce (garlic, olive oil, soy meat, can of diced tomatoes, can of green chiles diced, onion, green pepper all sauteed for about 1 hour on the stove) and brown rice. I then steam sauteed them in a little olive oil, lemon, and garlic for about 1 hour. NOM NOM NOM! :)



This is my little baby Lulu. I dressed her up like this and then I sang Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof. What a cutie!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Kalamata Olive Red Wine Garlic Spaghetti Sauce (kind of) and a Spinach Basil Chopped Salad


I personally do not like spaghetti noodles, so when I make a red sauce it always goes on these elbow noodles. Yum! Plus, the sauce sits in the noodle so you get more of it! You will want it with this sauce.

I got a giant frying pan out (don't use teflon! It is banned in Canada and I think also the entire European Union because it emits toxic gases that kills birds and small animals, plus it gets into your food!).  I saute a ton of crushed garlic in olive oil and then add at least one can of diced tomatoes. You can use fresh tomatoes also, you just have to boil them and then immediately put them into an ice bath in order to get their little skins off. Anyhow, saute the tomatoes in the garlic and olive oil and add the spices you want to use. I used oregano, tarragon, salt, pepper, and more fresh garlic. Then add in kalamata olives (pitted). Once it is almost done, add walnut cream (recipe below) or a cashew cream and a little bit of red wine.  This makes the tomato sauce really creamy and gives it a lot more depth. Mix in the noodles (after you have boiled them al dente) and cook the noodles for about 1 minute in the sauce. We served this with a sourdough baguette with some earth balance vegan butter (it is made of olive oil and tastes just like butter!).

Cashew cream or walnut cream are easy to make, but you can always purchase them from your local health food store or buy them online. A great store online is veganessentials.com. To make a nut cream (that you can use in your coffee, as a whipped topping, or in recipes like this), you just take raw, unsalted cashews (or other nuts, macadamias are great for a sweet recipe), and soak them overnight in the fridge covered in water. The next morning, put them in your blender or food processor with new fresh cold water that covers them by one inch. Blend. The finer blend you get, the better. You can adjust how creamy you want the sauce by how much water you put in, if you put in a lot of water you can actually make a cashew milk and if you put in just a little water you will get a sour cream consistency sauce (which is great with a little brown sugar and vanilla mixed in and topped over berries). People forget that nuts are just amazing little vehicles for creamy yummy fat....but a good kind of fat (unlike dairy cream). I would mess around with creating your own nut butter/cream/milk/sauce at home. Also, if you want you can take this mixture and add probiotics (just like the ones you may take in pill form) and make your own cheese at home out of nuts!


When I was in California for school back in 2000, I used to eat this amazing chopped salad at this wonderful restaurant called Tutti's in Montecito. OMG. Normal salad has such big chunks of things that you only get one or two tastes on every spoonful, but a chopped salad can combine many many tastes in each bite! The other nice thing about a chopped salad is you just put the whole veggies right into a food processor...you don't have to chop them all up into tiny bite sized portions! So easy! This is what was in my salad:

Spinach
Cucumbers
Tiny Tomatoes
Avocado
Apple Cider Vinegar
Olive oil
Cayenne Pepper
Salt and freshly ground Pepper
Handful of Basil
Lemon Juice

Yum! So many veggies and so easy to incorporate them all into one dish! :)

Saturday, May 8, 2010

This is a food blog site, but I recently was asked by my wonderful friend Aspen about the use of beauty products that have parabens in them, and I thought this would be a good forum to discuss not only the health of the things we put into our body, but also onto our body. A quick search on the internet for parabens and other scary items that are in your makeup, facial care products, shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste, etc. can be enough to scare a person so much they may give up attempting to be "green" or healthy and just continue using these horrible products! It doesn't have to be a tedious processs!

First, many people just don't understand how terrible the products they use are. Unlike drug manufacturers who must prove products are safe prior to selling them, there are no regulatory obligations for cosmetics or facial care products. :( Sad! Many times, the main ingredient in your lotion is petroleum, also known as mineral oil.....which is no different really than rubbing motor oil all over your face. It clogs your pores and basically is like wrapping your face in saran wrap not allowing water or air in. These products do the complete opposite of what a person using them is wanting, which is soft, moisturized skin and anti-aging effects. Boo. Why do cosmetics companies use it then? It's super cheap and seems at first like it makes your skin soft for a short period of time after you apply it!

The typical woman uses twenty products with over 200 chemicals prior to walking out the door in the AM per WebMD, "....these chemicals are linked to a slew of health threats that range from cancer to infertility and birth defects as documented by the World Health Organization and the CDC" (WebMD: Cosmetics Safety).

What are some of the problematic ingredients? These include parabens (which are preservatives that have been strongly linked to endocrine dysfunction and cancer), petrochemicals (this is the petroleum I was talking about), and phthalates (which are found in a ton of products but is not listed by itself, instead is encompassed in the ingredient "fragrance"). These ingredients have been called out as carcinogens and endocrine disrupters causing a ton of hormone-related diseases and problems (PMS, breast/ovarian/testicular cancers, thyroid problems (that means metabolism problems), etc (WebMD, Janet Gray PhD: Vassar Professor).  Obviously, women are at a high risk...but so are their unborn babies!!!! WebMD has a study that measured the amount of chemicals in the umbilical cords of newborn babies and found 287 toxic chemicals, 180 of which were known to be cancerous to humans. THAT IS FRIGHTENING!!!! Europe has already banned the use of all these chemicals in their cosmetic/personal care products, and they did it over six years ago....but sadly the U.S. has not yet jumped aboard. :(

There is something you can do for yourself though! www.CosmeticsDataBase.com is a GREAT website where you can enter in every product you are thinking about buying and get a safety score and also a list of possible carcinogens/toxins in those products. You can make an informed decision in everything from your cleaning products to your makeup!!!! The great thing about this (beyond protecting your health) is that you can vote EVERYDAY to change your world with your dollar! Support healthy products and eventually healthy products will overcome all the nasty, noxious products currently on the market. Don't be fooled by products that claim to be "green"!!!! Many companies are currently masquerading as "green" or "healthy" and they are not! Unfortunately, there are not very many regulations on this either....so use www.cosmeticsdatabase.com and find out the truth!!!!

You can also go to www.ERBC.Vassar.edu and find out about all the toxic products on the market as identified by Vassar College. You can also just make your own beauty products!!! It costs less and you know everything that is in them! Plus, in my opinion, they work SO much better!!!! Below are a few of the products I use and also some recipes for things you can make and put on your face at home!!!


These are Suki products.....OMG they are so great! You can read all the ingredients on the bottle and they are all natural and wonderful things! These are a few of their products I use: Echinacea facial oil, Balancing Day Lotion, Lemon Balm Cleanser, and their Nourishing Toner. :) These products are so safe you could eat them. Very healthy, not tested on animals, and no animal by-products!

 I've been trying to get away from Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. It's a very harsh detergent that is in almost all shampoos and not only dries out your hair but it strips your color, but it is also toxic to your kidneys and livers and is on the National Institutes of Health Hazards List. A lot of SLS free shampoos just don't give that "clean" feeling....but these are EXCELLENT! Hugo Naturals smells JUST like an orange cream cake, It is so so so great! John Masters Organics is also really great. Both are healthy, not tested on animals, and contain no animal by-products. :)





Since Burt's Bees got bought out by Clorox, some of their products have become questionable....but these two still have great ingredients and are SO GREAT! I especially like the deep cleansing cream. It preserves your skin's mantle (this is the pH balance of your skin, if you disrupt it like most cleansers do you are totally prematurely aging your skin....so ALWAYS look for pH balanced products!!!! Your skin has a mantle for the reason!). The deep cleansing cream makes my skin feel and look AMAZING!


Toothpaste and mouthwash are other items in your bathroom that can be totally toxic! (Doesn't that piss you off!?!?!). Tom's SLS free toothpaste and Natural Baking Soda mouthwash are the most toxin-free natural products I could find that also tasted like toothpaste and made my mouth feel clean. Most toothpastes contain Polyethylene glycol, titanium dioxide, saccharin, methylparaben, propylparaben, cocoamide DEA, and SLS. SLS, as stated above is known as a skin irritant, cause of mouth ulcers, toxic to aquatic animals and fish (its going down the drain), is toxic to your liver/kidneys, and is on the NIH hazards list!

There are a ton of great books on cosmetics and how terrible the "nasty" ones are and excellent alternative choices, but one that I really enjoyed was "Look Great, Live Green" by D. Burnes. She includes reasons you should care about what you put on your body, great brands of items, and also lots of recipes for facial care creations you can make at home!

-Strawberries and lemon juice are natural astringents.
-Mix 1/2 apple cider vinegar with 1/2 water for a great toner.
-Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide make a great toothpaste and mouthwash.
-Oatmeal, blueberries, and whole wheat flour make another excellent facial mask.
-Grapeseed oil, almond oil, and olive oil all make GREAT moisturizers!
-Avocado, lemon juice, and oatmeal make a great facial mask.
-You can wash your hair with baking soda and water (but I would only do this if you have light hair!)
-Apple cider vinegar makes your hair SUPER shiny and silky...and it doesn't smell after it dries!
-Make your own scrubs by combining either salt or sugar with olive, almond, or grapeseed oil and if you want a fragrance, add a little essential oil. There is no need to spend a ton of money on this easy scrub!!!
-Citrus fruits remove blackheads. Mix fresh squeezed orange, lime, or lemon juice and just rub them on your face prior to sleeping.
-Coffee grounds have toning properties and also increase blood flow to the areas you apply it to, which means all the great things in your blood go to damaged areas on your body and help to heal them. You can combine coffee grounds with almond, grapeseed, or olive oil and sugar for a great scrub!


On a side note, we had one of Mr. Jay's friends come into town this weekend and I made a whole slew of spreads for his arrival:



The spread had: white bean and basil hummus, vegan pesto hummus, olive tapenade, olive hummus, guacamole (with tiny plum tomatoes), salsa, McMillan taco "meat" dip, and the muhammara dip I made earlier yesterday! :) You can feed guests healthy food and still have them pleased with the presentation! :)












Friday, May 7, 2010

Falafel ball sandwiches and Muhammara dip!



So, someone recently mentioned that my pictures aren't taken with the greatest camera....yep, I took them with my iphone. Jay and I are anticipating getting a new camera soon! I still love my iphone! :)

Yummy falafel ball sandwiches! You can make your own falafel balls, or buy them (I would make them!)
Here is a good recipe for falafel balls from food network:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/falafel-recipe/index.html

Basically, they are just balls of garbanzo beans with lots of seasonings. I cook my falafel balls in olive oil and garlic and then right before I take them out I put the juice of 2-3 lemons on top. I warmed this pita bread in the oven and made a spinach salad with a lemon, red wine vinegar, olive oil, lots of garlic, green onions, cilantro, salt/pepper, cayenne, and cumin. Then I topped it with my vegan sour cream mixed with ranch seasoning. Pop it all into those warm pitas! We really really enjoyed these, they make you feel so energized and light after you eat them!

Today we had this Muhamarra dip from www.littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com, it was great. Veganlovebird.blogspot.com made me realize that all the bean dips I make that we don't finish I can always use throughout the week to put in veggie wraps! Yay! I will TOTALLY start making more hummus and other bean dips now that I know they will be put to good use.



This dip consisted of lots of roasted red peppers, baked walnuts, whole wheat bread cut into pieces, lemon juice, molasses, salt, LOTS of garlic, cumin, and olive oil. Here is the recipe from littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com:

1 lb. red bell peppers, roasted, peeled, and seeded
1 1/4 cups whole wheat bread crumbs
6 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
4 tsp molasses (she used pomegranate molasses, I used regular)
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2/3 cups roasted walnut pieces, lightly ground


Pop it all in your food processor. Shove it in your face! MMMmmmmm.
Let's also give a shout out to my Nana, who will never get on here but who sent Jay and me a brand new Kitchenaid food processor! Yay!


I feel so good after I eat meals now that I have stopped eating meat and dairy. I just want to give this lifestyle a shout out because WOW its such an improvement! I have more energy and generally just feel better. I haven't gotten sick in over 5 months either...and I used to get sick all the time! My sinus drainage used to make me want to throw up every morning, but now its totally gone! :) I am an emergency room nurse, and also a strep-leper (meaning if I even look at  a person with strep I get it) but I have been around a ton of strep patients lately and have not fell ill. :) Jay also has mostly given up dairy, and both of us DON'T GET HANGOVERS any more!It is totally crazy, because we used to get so dreadfully hungover.



 

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Eggplant!

I worked yesterday and today, which means I don't usually eat anything special (usually veggies, brown rice, beans, and miso soup....in some combination), so I have decided to dedicate today to eggplants. I cannot remember eating eggplants prior to a few months ago, but if I did it wasn't very memorable I guess. The first eggplant dish I had was a Japanese eggplant in an orange miso sauce at a restaurant called "Zushi". Jay attempted to sway me from purchasing this eggplant, but I wanted it....and he ended up eating half of it! Seriously fantastic! It had the softest mouthfeel and just a deep "buttery" taste. Oh. It was so so good. We talked about this specific eggplant for months, and then I attempted to make it and most definitely failed. However, I think I have figured out the sauce. Here are the photos and the maybe recipe.
  • 2 Tbs sweet white miso
  • 1 Tbs orange zest
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 1/4 cup earth balance or olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon shoyu/soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sake
  • 2 Tbs. brown sugar

You only need about 1 Tbs of the sauce above to put on the eggplant, then garnish with sesame seeds. You can freeze the rest of the sauce. This is a tasting recipe, meaning you should taste it as you go and decide how much of everything you want to put in. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and add the miso at the very end (or else you deactivate all of its good enzymes). The eggplant is cooked, white soft part down in a little olive oil or you can broil it until it is super soft inside.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants and I was seriously wanting this eggplant. They didn't have this specific recipe, but what they did have was equally incredible:



God. This was so good. Its eggplant chopped up in a chili, teriyaki sauce, lots of olive oil, ginger and garlic with green onions on top. They used corn starch as a thickening agent I think. They garnished it with chili, green onion, carrot, and lettuce. This was seriously one of the best meals I have ever had. It was all cooked in a wok, but you could pan fry it. Cooked this way, eggplant really resembles the mouth feel of a scallop. So yummy.



Above is one of my eggplant creations, a cajun eggplant. Its just eggplants pan fried in olive oil with brown rice and then you add cayenne, chili powder, salt/pepper, lots of garlic and green onions/cilantro. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Lunch and Dinner

I absolutely love pot stickers...they are so easy (unless they are homemade...don't bother, its more trouble than it is worth!). These are made with a homemade chili lime and marjoram sauce and are veggie pot stickers. Yum! I had these for lunch.


We had these for dinner. They are pan fried corn tortillas topped with gardein "chicken" (the absolute BEST meat sub!) sauteed in lemon juice, olive oil, and cayenne. They were topped with homemade guacamole (cumin, cayenne, lemon juice, black beans, avocado, garlic, salt/pepper), and this new vegan sour cream I found that is INCREDIBLE! I can not believe how it tastes exactly like sour cream. Sometimes I wonder if my taste buds are off so I always make Mr. Jay taste the vegan substitutes to verify they taste like the real thing....and this one did (according to Mr. Jay).




For dessert, we had Alicia Silverstone's peanut butter cups. THEY ARE SO GOOD! I could leave Mr. Jay with his Xbox and a giant tub of peanut butter and he would be fine for weeks, but I don't like peanut butter as much...so I didn't think I would like these. I made them for my corpsman at work last week and found them to be addictive! They are so easy too! All you do is mix 3/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup earth balance (vegan butter, you can use canola oil or real butter), 1/8 cup brown sugar, and ten graham crackers. Fill the bottom of cupcake liners with this mixture. Then, melt 1/4 c. soy milk (or rice milk, I used coconut milk) and a bag of dark chocolate chips (usually these are vegan) and once it is melted, pour an equal amount of chocolate over the pb mixture. Then pop them in the refrigerator for a few hours. I made about 50 last week and they were gone almost instantly, so I had to make more today for the corpsman who didn't get any.






Oh these damn things are so good. Ugh!