Cozy and Warm

Just look at this nutritious, sustaining, delicious breakfast.  Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Hot Cereal was cooked in full-fat coconut milk and topped with leftover roasted kabocha squash and organic dried apricots.  I could actually taste the color!  It was so warm and sweet, nothing more was needed!  Happy Autumn!

Parsnip Salad/Chutney/Compote

This lovely concoction came from improvising one of my favorites, "Parsnip Tabouli" from Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Kitchen.  Kris' recipe replaces couscous with raw parsnips and the result is shockingly lovely and delectable.  I didn't have most of the ingredients but had recently found some amazing organic parsnip specimens, so I tossed one into the food processor with Italian parsley, a few raw garlic cloves, sea salt, lemon and olive oil.  Amazing!  The flavors were perfect the first day, but the lemon continued to intensify as time went on.  I think I'd squeezed a whole lemon into this.  I'll use a little less next time.  Nevertheless, once I shifted my thinking on these leftovers (chutney or compote instead of salad), this was amazing mixed into fresh arugula with another drizzle of olive oil, stirred into a gorgeous, brothy vegetable soup, piled atop a sprouted english muffin, and also stuffed into a baked sweet potato!  One giant parsnip made all of this and I'm still eating it on everything.  What a great way to amp up the raw veggie representation!

I have a couple more giant, organic parsnips, which will also be amazing in a puree -- so much more silky and decadent than mashed potatoes.  For that, I'll just roughly chop them, boil them for about 15 minutes, then blend them in the vitamix with a little "butter" and nutmeg.  Mmmm.

Beautiful Bowl

I love a big, beautiful bowl of vegan food!  This usually means various leftovers from meals past, artfully combined, elevating each to a fresh new level.

Arugula (rocket) is the star of my bowls of late, and I've really been enjoying jasmine rice too.  I know there are healthier versions of rice, but the subtle flavor of the jasmine is on the tip of my tastebuds recently.

I did a terrible job of making oven frites the other night -- I'd not properly pre-heated the pan before laying the spuds upon it.  The fries got stuck and cooked unevenly and finally fell apart.  Cold, from the crisper, the leftovers of that debacle shine as they hadn't before, when added to this veggie bowl.  Crispy and herby, they are much better than croutons.  The grape tomatoes are tangy and better than we usually find this time of year.  They perfectly offset the richness of the olive oiled frites.  Delish~

Beachy!

We've just returned home from a week on the lovely shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The early days were cool and stormy. Most folks are disappointed with weather like this on vacation, but in my opinion, there is no better storm-watching than at the beach. These first few photos were taken over the course of only a couple of minutes.

Yikes! The above photo was at mid-day! We certainly had a front-row seat for Nature's thrilling, drama. Once the sun came out again, we braved the beach, but it was still a bit too chilly, and was best enjoyed from the comfort of our condo. The company of wonderful friends, good food, cocktails and cozy movie watching got us through the first few days, then finally the beach looked like this:

We took full advantage. It was pretty tough to leave.

I am still hard at work trying to learn what diet changes will help me most -- studying the Wahls' Protocol which allowed Dr. Terry Wahls to recover from almost complete disability from MS. Getting my head around some of the major changes I'll be making, and working them into the family table is overwhelming, so whatever transition I make at this point will be more of a "leaning-in" rather than the "flipping of a switch" that was my vegan transition. Since I'm still pretty confused, and was feeding lots of lovely folks at the beach with different dietary requirements and preferences, I just made a lot of food, sometimes multiple versions of the same dish.

My last morning at the condo, I ate as much delicious, gluten-free, veggie-ful food as I could stomach, knowing I'd be driving through gluten/gmo/dairy/non-organic/fried wonderland for about 7 hours. Seriously, I cannot be the only one who sees the need for healthy road-trip food. In this age of celiac, diabetes, gluten/dairy/nut intolerances and various and sundry autoimmune disorders it seems like a ripe opportunity for some entrepreneur. Maybe it'll be me someday after we're done paying tuition.

Back to my beachy-Buddha-bowl:

These leftovers were eaten cold from the fridge. They are: quinoa prepared with organic broth and garlic, sauteed potatoes and onions, crispy sauteed broccoli and half a raw avocado. The beautiful, delicious bowlful saw me through most of the journey home.

For a late lunch, Wendy's seemed to be a reasonable road-food candidate for the two gluten-free folks in our carload, so I carefully studied the menu. My daughter's gluten-free friend chose a baked potato with sour cream (she is not dairy-free). I chose a southwest barbeque chicken salad. Of the listed ingredients, I only needed to ask for the chicken, bacon and dressing to be omitted. (I know, the Paleo model of Wahls' Protocol allows for meats, but I won't choose non-organic meats, and don't really think I will ever choose chicken anyway because of what I learned in my macrobiotic dabblings). So, settling back into the car, I got ready to dig into salad greens with fresh tomatoes and roasted corn. Already on the highway, I lifted the lid and found . . . cheese. No, Wendy's, cheese isn't actually a salad green. It's surprising nobody at Wendy's thought it might be a good idea to list cheese as an ingredient. Piece by piece, I eradicated the offending morsels. Everyone else was done with their food by the time I got my first forkful.

All in all, it was a great beach week. I am inspired anew in my quest toward health and innovative, forward-thinking road-trip-franchise-creation.

Secondhand Buddha

It's a Buddha Bowl, actually -- a collection of different foods in one bowl, usually containing a pile of raw shredded kale and a special sauce of some sort. The other ingredients vary in a Buddha Bowl, but are always jam-packed with veggie goodness. I call this bowl "Secondhand Buddha" because I like that moniker better than "a bowlful of leftovers" I am a waste-not-want-notter, so I never throw anything away. Nothing hangs around for long so it works out. You can see the kale and the beans and rice, and the rest is a saute of cabbage, chick peas and hearts of palm with lots of lemon. Since these stars of my Secondhand Buddha Bowl are already well-flavored and a little saucy, I didn't add any other sauce. Everything's better with capers, though, so I let them join the party. Loved this bowl! 

Voluptuous Food

Here's a big, giant, luscious salad I made the day after Christmas. This is a dinner plate -- not a salad plate. This salad was mine . . . all mine!! I'd have made a bigger one if there had been any other takers, but we were all running around packing for our trip to Boston, and I seemed to be the only one concerned with not wasting the Christmas dinner leftovers. This salad was so good, decadent, filling and soothing. It was easy to make too. It was simply a big pile of baby spinach, leftover roasted potatoes and onions, leftover roasted Brussels sprouts, a whole avocado (!that's right!) white truffle oil and a generous squeeze of lemon.

In the colder weather, I'm craving fattier fare. All the healthy fats here were perfect for stoking and supporting a winter system. Calorie count? Don't know, don't care!

Being a creative veggie-eater doesn't have to be complicated. We can make magic when we think outside the box. Nuts, seeds, olives, capers, raisins, dates, noodles, rice, bread, all veggies --raw, marinated, pickled, roasted, steamed, chutneys, relishes, whatever your favorites are -- throw 'em on a pile of greens and chow down guilt-free!

A Bountiful Bowlful

One of my favorite things about cooking during the holidays is the leftovers! I'm a simple vegan+, really, usually subsisting on greens mixed with whatever is on hand, but a holiday dinner is special, featuring a few different dishes to go along with the old standbys. For Christmas dinner this year, to please my own culinarily motley crew along with a guest -- Wynne's friend, Yuval, here was the menu:

• Sweet curried collards with mushrooms, carrots, onions and chick peas (inspired by a recipe from one of my favorite former blogs "{Plate+Simple}" --you may still be able to find the archives)
• Roasted potatoes with onions, salt and pepper -- raw chopped potatoes, 450 degrees for half an hour.
• Roasted Brussels sprouts with shallots, salt and pepper (I've seen some lovely maple- or agave-glazed roasted sprouts recipes, but I am not crazy about sweet sprouts, and since I am the boss of veggies around here, we had 'em simple -- quickly steamed sprouts (1 minute, then rinsed in cold water), then 425 degrees for 15 minutes. I have roasted them exactly like the potatoes before, but the outsides turned out burnt and the insides, still almost raw. The short steam at the beginning, with a slightly lower temp, and a shorter roast time is my preference.
• Sesame ginger soba noodles -- These seem to come out a little different each time I make them since I don't measure, but the important ingredients are grated ginger (about a Tbsp.) oil, a little rice vinegar, a little shoyu, a couple shakes of red pepper flakes, a pinch of salt, scallions sliced on the diagonal -- lots of 'em, cooked soba noodles, a few drops of sesame oil at the end and a small handful of sesame seeds thrown in after it's all done. I like the black ones.
• An organic chicken I roasted myself -- this was rough, I'm not gonna lie, since it did involve touching and manipulating a dead body. The worst part was that I assumed the inside of the carcass would be similar to turkeys I have roasted in the past (neat little packets of unmentionables), but it wasn't. I spent a few minutes trying to pull the neck from the cavity before realizing (!!!!!) it was still attached. Ugh. Horrible. They don't chop the necks off the organic ones (shudder). I said a prayer for the little birdy, choked back some bile and adjusted my martyr cloak. Then I poured a little Christmas martini and felt better. I had considered buying a pre-roasted rotisserie chicken, but I thought I would do something nice and take the hormones and antibiotics out of the family's poultry experience. I won't do it again.

Chicken necks aside, it was a lovely meal, and today's leftovers were amazing. The bowlful in the photo features poultry-free leftovers only! Stay tuned for the next reinvention of these delectable morsels.

When In Doubt, Add Kale

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was lovely, just the four of us this year. With Hans off at college and Wynne in high school now, it's nice to be able to rein 'em all in for a bit. Now that the day-o-cooking has passed, the annual challenge of reinventing leftovers is upon me. Roasted veggies are great  piping hot and crispy, fresh from the oven, but the next day, cold and a little soggy, they need a creative reboot.

I warmed them in a pan with olive oil, on low heat at first, then I turned up the heat to help the roots get their crispy on. A big bowl of kale was then dumped on top and I tossed the whole panful with two wooden spoons for about 3 minutes. The resulting "breakfast hash" was just what I wanted.

In other news, after a recent juicing mishap, I noticed veggies on the ceiling. I fetched the ladder and did what I could to eradicate the mess, but it looks like there'll be a permanent stain. I got a good belly laugh from my 16 year old though -- any little thing I can do to entertain that sweet girl, who revels in my veggie adventures.

Lots of Leafies

You know I love my greens, but when it comes to leafy veggies, like with anything else, a bit of diversification is a good thing. Above are some juice veggies that were inspired by something I saw recently from Kris Carr-- I believe hers was called "Cabbage Rose". I'm pretty sure it was not exactly this collection, but the purple cabbage instead of greens was the start of the inspiration, and I went from there. In this batch was: 1/4 purple cabbage, a whole fennel bulb with stalks and fronds, two gala apples, a big cuke, and lots of raw ginger. This batch really packed a powerful flavor punch, which I liked, but others may want to reduce the fennel and/or ginger quantities. That was before. Here's after:

 Look at that color! Isn't it "mauvelous"? This was very yum.

From the rest of the cabbage, I made some cole slaw for fish tacos I served the family the other night. The slaw was easy -- sliced thinly, the cabbage was mixed with the juice of half a lime, 2 tablespoons of veganaise, a pinch of salt and green onion. A meal like tacos is perfect for my mixed family of carnivores, a vegetarian and a vegan. Other toppings I featured besides the slaw and the fish were sour cream - dairy and not, dairy cheese, garlicky collards and chick peas, black beans and salsa. Wynne had bean tacos with cheese and salsa, and I had bean, collards-n-chick peas, slaw and salsa tacos. The guys had whatever it was they wanted. I didn't pay attention, but nothing got wasted.

The next day, the slaw tasted even better. It was a great snack on some delicious multigrain sourdough bread spread with earth balance -- mmmm.

Before I close this "diverse leafy veg" post, I want to share my favorite prepackaged salad:

Normally I prefer to get whole veggies and wash and prepare them myself, but this is great for those busy moments where not having it on hand would make our food choices less wholesome. Organic Girl Super Greens is so much better than any other mixed prepackaged salad, in my opinion. They had me at "our most nutritious salad". Seriously -- this combination, of red and green swiss chard, tat soi, arugula and spinach, is so flavorful I eat it with no dressing. Give it a try if you haven't yet. I'd show you the greens, themselves, but, ummm, I already ate them. Here's my little trick for keeping these boxed salads fresh -- after the box is opened, lay a paper towel across the top of the greens before replacing the lid and putting it back in the fridge. The towel soaks up and holds excess moisture so the greens remain perfectly dry but the air within the box is moist enough to keep the veggies fresher longer. You may have already figured this out as well.

Leafy veggies of any color rock!

Menu-less Days

Regular readers understand that, while I value and strive for vegan epicurean excellence, when it comes right down to it I'm a pretty lazy cook. The fact is that life is full and busy in my present chapter and more often than not I find myself merely responding to its demands rather than proactively charting my own course. No matter -- I've found myriad shortcuts that allow most meals to adhere to my lofty fab food standards.

Not much goes to waste. Leftover take-out szechwan tofu was great with a bit of brown rice from the pot I'd made three days prior and a few stalks of fresh broccoli rabe.

A box of Pacific Pho Stock was improved with some rice noodles, tofu, spring onion, leftover green beans, cilantro, lime and shoyu.

Each time I re-warmed the leftover pho, I added more onion, cilantro and lime to keep it fresh and bright in flavor.

On days with literally five minutes to make food and eat it, I can still add a fresh tangle of cilantro to an Amy's stir fry before I wolf it down.

Obviously, eating prepared foods at every meal would not be the healthiest choice, since there is a lot more sodium and sugar than I would use if I were creating it from scratch, but at least it's not chicken nuggets! Sometimes we do what we have to do and then get back on track when the situation allows.

Leftovers on a Lovely Day

Finally some food! I know I've mostly been featuring juice lately, but I do also eat. I love leftovers. Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I decided to have an alfresco lunch. I sat on my screen porch -- gotta love that natural light! This taco salad utilized leftovers from our dinner the night before. Dinner was chicken tacos from the leftovers from the night before that (rotisserie chicken) The taco bar is an example of how I can best feed a family with different diets. I am feeding a quasi-health-conscious-omnivore (husband), a non-health-conscious-carnivore-with-food-allergies (son), an almost-vegetarian (daughter) and a vegan (myself). Lucky for me, the food that was mostly left over was my kind of food! You can see what it all is. That's non-dairy sour cream on top. Delish!

I am still juicing daily, and today I will share this pretty photo of a pre-juice pile:

This was yesterday's juice: romaine, kale, carrot, two apples, two cucumbers, ginger and lemon! I just want to say that ginger and lemon are the rock stars of this flavor combo -- soooo good! I used a whole lemon (peeled -- the white pith is too bitter) and the lemon flavor was a bit forward toward the end of the glass, so you may want to try a quarter or half of a lemon first and see what you think. But seriously do consider adding fresh lemon to your juice. It is very bright and energizing.

For today's juice (no photo, I think you've seen enough) I tried pears  instead of apples. Because of the delicate flavor of pears, I didn't use the lemon or ginger. I wanted to taste the pear. I was disappointed. The pear flavor got swallowed up by the kale. The juice was fine, but not great like my ginger-lemon rock star juice. Fresh juice is such a treat, I'm sticking with my favorites from now on!

P.S. - Happy 18th Birthday to my wonderful son, Hans! We are so proud of you!

Learning Curve

Today I will share with you some candid, unstyled photos of the inside of my home after everyone has been here every day for two weeks straight. Today is my husband's first day back at work. We normally take a little trip this time of year but that did not work out since my almost-18-year-old is still finishing up last semester due to all the school he missed with his daily migraines. So, the kid was studying, the other kid was running in and out of here with many different friend combinations, and the hubby was staycationing, My daily vacuuming became unpopular (they don't like the noise, bless them). But the point of this post is not to share the level of filth with which I've recently become accustomed -- that's just a side effect of telling you today's installment of my juicing saga.

As with any new equipment, there is a learning curve with using, cleaning, drying and storing the many parts of my amazing appliance. Today, after filling my glass with a fabulous elixir made from cucumbers, celery, a leaf of kale, half a head of romaine, a fuji apple and some ginger root (YUM!), I absentmindedly poured the second glassful into a cup for later. Unfortunately I poured as if pouring from the coffee pot, the lid of which remains attached. The lid of the juicer pitcher is not attached. So here's what happened:

Ugh -- doesn't just looking at that make you nervous? Ellie came running when she heard the catastrophe. That's her tail there poking up over the edge of the counter, and that's her fur there under the cabinet across the room. Fortunately, I had already taken a sip of this fab elixir before said catastrophe, so the mood-soothing effects of greens were already working their magic. I just felt thankful that nothing was on fire this time, then called Emma over to help her sister get started on the cleanup:

My beasts sure love veggies! After the pups gave me a head start, the rest wasn't that difficult to dispatch. And I was left with this:

Ahhh!

In more good news, I've been fighting a little cold which is going away very quickly from the juice and from this bowl of easy curried chickpeas I ate yesterday:

I added half a chopped yellow onion to a bowl of Amy's Lentil Soup, simmered it until the onion was cooked, then added a can of chickpeas, some curry and turmeric. I served it over leftover quinoa and topped  it off with some green onion. This was such a satisfying New Year's Day stew!

Now -- vacuuming!

Pulp Non-Fiction

My first pulp-waste-not-want-not experiment was a fail -- no, a hazardous debacle. I didn't take a photo (I was disappointed in the result, so -- grouchy), but the jungle photo of Curacao, above, looks pretty much like the bean soup I created yesterday from a couple of day's worth of juicing pulp, a whole box of veggie broth, an onion, some garlic and a can of beans. The soup tasted like a bland granny smith apple, and the texture was awful. But I am getting ahead of myself . . .

My idea was to transform the pulp into a smooth, creamy consistency, so I dug out my HealthMaster blender by Montel Williams that I received two years ago. This machine, able to turn a cinderblock to dust in the infomercial, has provided me with many satisfying soups, dips and smoothies, and I was sure it was up to the task of transforming pulp into soup. I knew I'd need to add plenty of liquid so as not to overtax the motor, so I did. I used the lowest setting for about four minutes as I sauteed the onion and garlic to add later. I began smelling smoke, so I went over to the stove, thinking I was burning the onion, but then realized the HealthMaster WAS ON FIRE! I ran back across the kitchen and pulled the plug as smoke billowed forth, filling my kitchen. My brave husband quickly picked up the smoking machinery and placed it in the middle of our driveway, away from anything flammable.

Defeated, I pulled out my old-as-the-hills food processor (it's at least 25 years old, and missing most of its parts) and attempted to improve the texture of the above mess. My ancient food processor did not burst into flames, so my mood improved a little. I put a bit of the mixture aside in a tupperware for future experimentation and put the rest of it in a pot on the stove. I added some shoyu. I added some liquid smoke. I added some salt. It still tasted exactly like a grainy apple. Finally I gave up on my initial idea and decided to turn it into chili. I added a McCormick's chili packet. It still tasted like a granny smith apple, but worse.  Sorry -- "waste not want not" didn't work this time. The soup went down the drain, to nourish the enzymes in our septic tank. The bit in the tupperware I will attempt to utilize in a tomato spaghetti sauce, but if that is no good I'm going to quit losing good food after bad, and go straight to plan C -- the compost heap.

Truthfully, the only flavorful part of the pulp was the apple. The kale, romaine, celery, even the carrot had lost every bit of flavor with the absence of juices, and likely most of the vitamins and minerals as well. So I don't feel I am wasting after all as much as I initially did.

Heed my cautionary tale, pulp aficionados, lest your HealthMaster also burst into flame.

"Odds-n-Ends" Quinoa Edition

This week I made a giant pot of quinoa, which was a good idea, because now it is all gone and I'm wishing I had some more. Heretofore I will make it in this larger quantity. There are so many different ways to eat quinoa, and it's so nice to have it on hand for that fantastic vegan-complete-protein energy boost. Instead of using all veggie broth this time in the quinoa prep, I used half broth and half filtered water. I was not sure how I'd be using the quinoa and I didn't want to limit the possibilities with a pronounced savory flavor. Above is a photo of a fantastic bowl I ate for lunch with arugula, cold quinoa, black beans, red pepper hummus and goddess dressing jazzed up and thinned with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil (it was the bottom of the bottle, and I hate to waste any!).

Here is one of Wynne's school lunches. Sorry about the bad photo quality. It was about 6:30 a.m. and I hadn't yet finished my coffee. Wynne is not a vegan, but she doesn't like the idea of eating animals. For all intents and purposes, as it turns out, she's usually vegan at lunch. Wynne says the school lunches are terrible, and from what I understand, she's right. It's a shame our public schools can't do better for our children, but that's enough for another post. Making Wynne a lunch each morning from my vegan leftovers is something I am more than happy to do. You will notice a variation on a theme from Wynne's last favorite meal featured -- tomatoes and chick peas! This time they are mixed into the quinoa with a little touch of veganaise. Wynne LOVES food like this. I also send her a luna bar, some applesauce and an Izze fruit juice soda.

Very similar in content to the first salad pictured, but different in dining experience, is this warm bowl I put together from kale, quinoa, hummus and almonds. This was a very satisfying and filling dinner. Among other meals born of my giant quinoa pot are:

A great massaged kale salad recently featured on Sammy's "Vegan Pandamonium" -- the kale is massaged with avocado instead of oil, and then cooked quinoa is added -- it is so good!

Quinoa "porridge" for breakfast -- I just added some almond milk to the cold quinoa and microwaved it. The porridge was fine, but I was too morning-foggy to think about yummy additions that would have made it delicious like chopped, dried dates or maple syrup, etc. Next time . . .

Shaggy and Without a Plan

There's my garden, AKA Buster's Estate. Here, at the end of the Summer season, where the Labor Day weekend dropped us from 94 degrees Fahrenheit to a chilly 64, I cannot expect much more from my burgeoning tomatoes. Any little green-orb effort the plants make is quickly nabbed off the vine overnight. The aubergines, all three varieties, are still hanging in there, and will likely become Eggplant Parmesan soon since I adored it so very much the last time I made it. Back to the tomatoes -- those are only five plants. Will you look at that shaggy mess? It's so long and unruly, but thin and without substance. It sort of reminds me of my hair:

Shaggy without a plan . . . I've loved it short since April, and have learned from my wonderful artiste of a hairdresser that a bit of a mess is much less aging on a short do than a carefully coiffed arrangement (the dreaded helmet-head!) So my technique is to run some product through with my fingers, blow dry in every direction for about 2 minutes and then choose a few fingerfuls to feature with a little wax. It's worked like a charm until now. My "pretty mess" is not so pretty anymore. I think my hair is falling out from the stress of raising teenagers (it doesn't get any easier, you moms of tots!) So now I have an unruly mop, not lustrous and thick as in days of old, and I have no plan. Shall I cut it short again? Shall I go even shorter? Is it time to grow it out? I don't think I even remember how to grow out a short cut.

With my garden I'm also at a decision point. After I tear out the unproductive tomato bramble, dare I sow a winter crop? I've no doubt Buster would adore a bit of variety, so the collards, broccoli and cauliflower I covet, alkaloid-less as they would be, wouldn't last a day with Buster around. Maybe a winter crop of gourds and winter squashes might fare better. If I plant anything that is appealing at all to Buster, am I only encouraging him to remain planted in my garden? Maybe if I leave the garden fallow for a season or two Buster would lose interest and move on to greener pastures. How long is a chipmunk's natural lifespan? Might he share the news of his present good fortune with other real-life Disney characters? In that case the topic of a chipmunk's lifespan is beside the point. The Buster and friends - cycle could potentially continue indefinitely.

I am feeling unusually decision-averse today, maybe my head is only addled from the change in the weather and a good night's sleep will set things right, but if you have any suggestions about my two shaggy messes, I'd love to hear them!

Odds-n-Ends, Food I've Been Eating

In my typically random "odds-n-ends" fashion, here's a bit of what I've been enjoying. Above is carrot, daikon and winter squash (I know, it's out of season!) from Christina Pirello's This Crazy Vegan Life. This stew is actually very bright in flavor, like sunshine. It is finished with fresh lemon juice and Italian parsley. It's light, yet sustaining, good hot or cold.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, before . . .

 . . . and after. Olive oil, salt, pepper and a tangle of fresh thyme and oregano from my herb patch (Buster hasn't yet figured how to climb into that pot, which is up off the ground, so the herbs are living the good life, unmolested!) I loved the crunchy brown parts on these sprouts. The bowl is one of the few surviving pieces I have left from my grandma Eula's everyday collection. The blue-and-white inspired me to fill in with more of the same color scheme for my own everyday. I also have her full set of fine china, but we rarely use it since we are such a rough and tumble bunch.

Collard greens sauteed with a bit of red onion, chick peas and GOBS of garlic (at least 10 cloves!) I encourage all you vegans out there to try going overboard with garlic. You'll love it! This was a full meal on its own, and I munched it for days.

Here's a shot of the above two featured dishes, along with a baked sweet potato. We've recently added a roof to our patio, which allowed me to move some furniture around and unclutter the screened porch. I've set up a small dining table out there. This was our first alfresco meal. My eyes were bigger than my stomach. I had to save a lot of this plateful, but none of it got wasted.

Homemade miso soup with daikon, onion, cabbage and tofu. This was a big batch, and I enjoyed the leftovers for several breakfasts. Having miso soup in the morning sets the tone for the day. The soup imparts a grounded, centered energy. If you ever find yourself with leftover miso soup, remember not to bring it to a boil when reheating it. Boiling kills the beneficial enzymes.

Here's a plateful of polenta with broccoli rabe, roasted peppers, onion and garlic. I LOVE broccoli rabe, also known as broccoli rape (!) and rapini. The checkout clerk tried to charge me for broccolini, another veggie which is actually a genetically modified hybrid. Broccoli rabe is more bitter than broccolini. Personally, I prefer the bitter note of this delicious vegetable. It tastes as if I've gleaned it from a meadow in Tuscany. Not only is broccolini of a less pure origin than broccoli rabe, it is also more expensive! I enjoyed the polenta for the corn that it is, but the omnivores found it to be bland to their sugar-addled taste buds.

This says summer to me -- just a homegrown tomato, veganaise, salt and pepper on good, crusty bread. This will likely be the last tomato sandwich from my garden this year. Buster easily climbs the thick stems of the heirloom vines now, and he takes the tomatoes before they have a chance to ripen. At least I still get all the grape tomatoes I want. those stems are too flimsy to hold buster's weight. I'll be buying the occasional heirloom tomato at $4.99/lb. so that I can continue to savor this late summer treat.

Stay tuned for a feature on Buster's least favorite vegetable -- the aubergine (eggplant). Aubergine is a lot more fun to say than eggplant, porridge is better than oatmeal, and polenta is better than cornmeal mush. Do you have a favorite gastronomical delight that can be elevated with loftier nomenclature? If you do, play along and share. I love expanding my vocabulary!

Luscious Leftovers Salad

When a vegan actually cooks something rather than just opening a package for food, it is usually pretty darn spectacular. I'm serious. When we consider our nutritional needs coupled with our over-the-top celebration of plant foods and how special they make us feel, every meal can seem like a gourmet indulgence if we wish it to be. So, I don't know about you, but around here vegan food doesn't get wasted. It just gets reborn!

This wonderful salad was born of some of my bunco leftovers (the raw veggies) and my leftover potato gratin. It is a giant handful of arugula topped with the veggies and crispy cheezy potatoes, then a julienne of raw daikon which I am loving lately most days. I've been doing a fair amount of spackling and sanding, dusting and rearranging, so my sinus has been working overtime processing the nasty air I've been breathing. So, since I have been taking decongestants from time to time, the daikon offsets the systemic problems the medicine will bring. I love food as medicine!

To top my healthy luscious leftovers creation I slightly drizzled two oils I have been enjoying lately.

On the left is Blood Orange Olive Oil from The Olive Press, a gift from one of our wonderful friends, and on the right, the Black Truffle Oil I bought for Alicia's Radicchio Pizza (my most favorite food of all time as of this moment). I was unable to locate White Truffle Oil, which was called for, but I've got no complaint with the Black Truffle version. I was very light with the truffle oil, which is more viscous and richer in flavor. The two oils beautifully complemented one another and my delicious salad.

Food reinvention is one of my favorite vegan hobbies. "Waste not, want not" becomes, "Wow -- this is better than the first time!"

Paella!

On Sunday, while I was cleaning/organizing, my husband came over and said, "What were you thinking about for lunch?"

I answered, "Well, I just finished breakfast, so I wasn't. You want some soup?" as I pointed to the cans in the pantry.

"Can you make Paella?"

"Um, sorta,'"

So my vegan paella, complete with optional seared chicken was born. I am sorry, it was a rush job so I did not write the recipe as I went. Here is what I remember:

Paella
Ingredients:
1 c. brown rice
2 1/2 c. broth or water with a bouillon cube
6 shakes of turmeric (I didn't own any saffron)
half a large white onion, diced
a clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
a large handful of grape tomatoes, sliced
half a cup of sliced raw spinach
1 c. frozen peas, unthawed
optional if you are catering to your omni-brethren: three frozen chicken tenderloins (for one omni-serving)
Serves 4


Start the rice and broth/water and bouillon -- I just lazily put it all in together and stirred it a little as it came to a boil. Then I lowered the heat to low and covered. From here the rice took about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients. Add the onion, garlic, tomatoes and tomato paste. Cover and continue to cook. I found I needed to add some more warm water about 30 minutes in, as the rice was still too firm and the evaporation was happening too early. You could add half a cup here or just start out with 3 cups instead of the 2 1/2 that are on the rice package. In a separate pan, cook the frozen chicken in some olive oil over medium-high heat until browned on both sides. Keep the pan covered since the melting ice will create spatters. Once the chicken is browned, turn the heat to low and leave covered so it can finish cooking through as the rice finishes. When the rice is finished, take off the heat and stir in the frozen peas and spinach. The heat will thaw and wilt everything together. Serve it up!


Obviously, with a little heads-up, I would have had the opportunity to make this much more spectacular and much more vegan -- sausages, gardein, but my husband loved it as it was, I thought it was pretty good and, as a bonus, my picky but sometimes veganly (could that be a word, please?) adventurous daughter loved it, and opted for it sans chicken (I only put the chicken in my husband's bowl - the rest stayed vegan). She even wolfed down the leftovers on her way to workout the next day after school! (they feed them lunch at school at 10:30 -- crazy, huh?) I warned her she might get a cramp during workout, but she was starving so I let her have the healthy leftovers. As luck would have it, she had a very good workout and was no worse for the eating schedule.

This "paella" was something I wasn't inspired to do, but I was proud to have been able to bring it all together spur-of-the-moment. I was also proud it was another healthy option for my little girl!

Almost a Year In -- Cravings Still Changing

On February 11 I will have been vegan for one year. The year has passed so quickly, and I only mention the milestone because I have had occasion recently to realize that my vegan body, which speaks to me so clearly, is evolving even still.  I must have had more animal sludge stockpiled than I thought!

I judge what's going on within by how I feel, and by the extreme cravings that come barreling through. I always answer my cravings by indulging them to the best of my ability. I had reason recently to open Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, something I realize I haven't done in a while, my tried and true recipes from the tome being so ingrained already in my mind. The way I realized I hadn't recently flipped through is that certain recipes that used to make me grimace were now calling to me, namely the Radicchio Pizza and the Braised Daikon. So I had to try both yesterday.  Something else I suddenly had to have was cheezy cashew cream sauce, which I had recently noticed from various sources. I made up a recipe for it too. So I had a big hodge-podge cooking day yesterday!

Here's what I came up with:

These are the slices of daikon cooking in the mirin mixture that is finally getting syrupy after about an hour. I think it took so long because my daikon wasn't very large and so didn't fill the pan very well, so covering the slices required too much liquid. Alicia says that size doesn't matter here (I see what you did there, girl!) but, um, I think it does!

Verdict -- wasn't too crazy about these at first -- too sweet on one side, too not on the other (I can't stand sugar now, almost a year in) I really really liked the refrigerated leftovers, eaten cold with my fingers the next morning. Weird, but there it is. Also, I really liked how the daikon got everything moving. The effect was very energizing. Food as fuel.

When I had been thinking the daikon would be my lunch, I planned a cabbage dish to go with it -- just cabbage, leeks, shoyu and lemon.

Here is the bowl of lovely clean veggies -- see the root end of one of the leeks there? I washed it well and included it. I love the texture -- I don't remember liking it last year.

And here is the sauteed veg, complete with shoyu and lemon. Four shakes tasted too salty to me (I am recently intolerant of salt as well) so I put some of it on some whole wheat linguine and topped it with my cheezy sauce:

That's the ticket! Since I had made the sauce just for me, I put very little salt in it, and it is luscious! The sauce with the veggies and plain whole wheat pasta was exactly what I wanted to eat!

Here's my cheeze sauce recipe:

Cashew Cheeze Sauce
Ingredients:
11.5 oz. whole raw cashews
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. barley miso
4 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, plus more for sprinkling


I've heard the cashews should be soaked overnight, but mine weren't. I was in a hurry. I soaked mine for a little over an hour, rinsing them well and changing the water 3-4 times. Then, in a high-powered blender, cover soaked cashews with fresh water and process until completely homogenous, incorporating all ingredients.


This is a completely raw sauce and turned out to be just to my taste. You could easily tinker with the ingredients to create the sauce of your dreams too.

Whew! What a lunch-creating frenzy all that was! It was fun though, and the daikon really went straight into the fridge for the lovely cold next day breakfast that it turned out to be.

My family decided it would be fun to make our own pizzas for dinner, a few hours after the above frenzy. So I put out some ingredients and left them to it, while I again opened The Kind Diet for myself. I decided to create a sort of morph of two of Alicia's recipes, The Radicchio Pizza and the Thin Mushroom Pizza. I used two Whole Wheat Flatbreads, spread with tofutti cream cheese (I was over making sauces at that point) and topped with radicchio, salt, pepper and black truffle oil (couldn't find white truffle oil). It was TRANSCENDENT. I know all-caps is like yelling, sorry, but that is how very delicious this meal was to me. I am so sad I just finished the leftovers.

Yum. This is the best food in the world to me right now. This and my own homemade apple sauce. I actually dream about those foods.

Yes, the vegan transformation has been drastic and surprising. It is still an adventure, and I wouldn't have missed a second of it! Um, maybe those first 6 cheese-addiction-detox-tremens weeks, but other than that, not a second! I look forward to what's next.