Sprouted Vegan

LARABARS!!!

2010-09-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

...are just about the best snack food and Chocolate Covered Katie is giving them away!!

Check it our here. There are separate links to enter for bloggers and for non-bloggers and ways to get more entries. I'm all over it!!!!

It's been sooooooooooooo loong...

2010-07-17T18:11:00.000-05:00

...and it'll be a while longer before another food post.

I am busy and it's hot here and I've had too little sleep and no time to cook so I'm cranky...and so on.

The good news -- giveaway at The Voracious Vegan. TofiXpress!!!

Check it out!

YUM!!!

2010-05-28T19:31:00.002-05:00

My favorite kind of give-away:

ARTISANA BUTTERS!!!!!!

Check it out here! And I hope you don't win because I have to! =D

Sixty bucks!!!

2010-05-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

Give-away at Chocolate Covered ~~Katie's~~ Healthy's!!!

Anything from CSN's websites (and they have many!!!) worth $60 -- or $60 worth of anything you want.

YAY!! I want this one!! (Which one do I NOT want, anyway??!?!?)

Stevia give-away at Love Veggies and Yoga

2010-05-03T20:14:00.000-05:00

FOUR very lucky winners will win a beautiful stevia package from NuNaturals:

1) one box of NuStevia White Stevia Powder, 50 ct. packets, PLUS
2) one bottle of Vanilla Stevia Liquid, 2oz bottle

*sigh I've been wanting to try NuNaturals stevia for ever, but I never (not true!) win these! Maybe this time my luck changes. =]

Go to Love Veggies and Yoga to try your luck and screw up my odds. :D

Leisure time around the oven

2010-04-20T19:06:00.033-05:00

I've been on a mini vacation the last several days and had more time to tinker with foods and recipes, which, now I see, explains why every time I'm off work I gain weight.

That aside, it was a delicious extended weekend! I made goodies galore! Here are some of the highlights:

For breakfast, I made a rice wrap banana "burrito." I cut up a banana diagonally, filled it with my favorite things -- chocolate, coconut, honey -- wrapped it in a rice wrap and sauteed in a pan for a couple of minutes on each side. I covered it with more choco-coco and gobbled it up! Pretty good and gooey.

French (whole wheat) couscous with Cajun hot sauce and sauteed veggies (tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, spinach) on top, alongside some muffaletta olive salad, was next on the daily menu.

The couscous is highly recommended!!

And I made an attempt at home-made turtles, but the caramel sauce didn't hold together well. I veganized a recipe that sounded and looked so finger-licking good, but alas!...

Here they are (they were still very much edible!):

I used peanuts

Here's the caramel recipe, if anyone would like to give a try - and if it doesn't separate, please let me know what you did and how many virgins I have to sacrifice to the volcano gods! (just kidding; everyone knows they're only demi-gods):

-2 Tbsp (vegan) butter
-1/2 C packed brown sugar
-1/4 C (vegan) half and half
-pinc of salt
-1 Tbsp vanilla

Mix the first 4 ingredients over medium low heat, 5 to 7 minutes until thicker. Add vanilla and cook another minute. Refrigerate in a jar until cold.

If you make it work as a vegan recipe, I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

Easy dishes

2010-04-10T20:29:00.001-05:00

By "easy dishes" I'm talking minimal prep on my side, and heavy processing on the production side. I know. Not good. But, unfortunately, on those busy or lazy days, very convenient. Here's an example each of an "easy dish" for breakfast and another one for lunch. I'd like to preface the rest of this post by saying I did not eat them on the same day. =] In fact, they were weeks apart! Ha. As if that makes me less of a food slob.

If I buy soyrizo, a vegan, gluten-free chorizo substitute that actually taste remarkably similar to the real thing, I often don't know what to do with it. But I was curious to try it at first, and later discovered I liked the taste, only to realize it's not an item I can find much use for in my kitchen. So, several weekends ago, as I was warming up corned beef hash for my husband (I know!!! he loves it, though; he's not exactly focused on the "healthy" as much as the "tasty" part when it comes to food), and I had a ton of potatoes that needed a purpose in life, I thought -- why not make soyrizo hash!

And soyrizo hash I made! Tasty, but as it combines protein and starch, I had some...unfortunate digestive difficulties. =\ Live and learn. This, and bloating problems (TMI!) is why I started food combining. And if you want to know more about proper food combining, read this, or this -- it helped me change both my eating habits and my "digestive difficulties."

So, here's soyrizo:

There are at least 3 different types of it that I know, but this time I bought Melissa's

Mine and my husband's dishes side-by-side:

Mine is on the left. All I did was cut up a potato into really small cubes, added an equal amount of the faux-sage, and cooked until the potatoes were soft and soyrizo browned, as suggested by the packaging. It was very good! And if you "stomach" eating protein and starch with no adverse effects, by all means -- do it!

Close-up

The second ready-in-a-snap dish I ate some weeks later was boxed gluten-free vegan mac-and-cheese and canned vegan chili. Easy as...well, definitely not pie, cause that's hard to make -- but this was a breeze to get ready. Make the macaroni per directions, takes something like 5 minutes, open can, heat chili, pour over noodles -- eat. A snap! I also opened another can (oh, the hard work of a cook!) of fire-roasted diced tomatoes with garlic and plopped them on top. For color and veggie requirement.

Add a salad if you feel guilty about all the processing.

Ok, I'm off to "cook" dinner.

Take out

2010-04-07T18:23:00.002-05:00

I was too lazy to cook this week so I got one of my favorite take-outs for lunch -- Vegetable Delight from a place called Thai Spoon.

As the menu says, it's a dish full of stir-fried "mixed vegetables including peapods, broccoli, carrots, baby corn, mushrooms, bean sprouts, green pepper, napa, and onions served over rice." Very tasty and I always substitute brown rice for regular. Check out these pictures and tell me you're not drooling:

All those veggies.....................

I got the "large" =]

I'll be back with regularly scheduled programing next post.

Super awesome food

2010-04-04T23:24:00.001-05:00

=]

Yeah, tooting my own horn there, but what can I say -- it was delish!

Check this out: barbecue tofu, cheezy spinach grits, and slaw! Yumm!

Barbecue tofu

Close-up, mmmmm...

Cut up tofu into 1/2 in cubes and bake them in the oven at 350F for 15-20min. After that, roll them in some oil and flour/salt mixture and saute on the stove for a couple of minutes, and then add your choice of bbq sauce. I always make mine from just about scratch, but any will do. I mix tomato sauce with some ground garlic and onion, pepper, celery salt, cloves, chili powder, some apple cider vinegar, tamarind extract, tamari, paprika, cayenne pepper, mustard powder, any kind of sweetener, and a little bit of hot sauce. Cook on the stove till barbecue-brown. =]

For grits, boil water and salt, add hominy and cook for several minutes. Just before done, add vegan cheese (I used Teese Mozzarella vegan cheese) and as much frozen spinach as you'd like; cook until the cheese melts and DONE!

The slaw was shredded broccoli, red cabbage and carrot with vegan slaw dressing I adopted from Love Veggies and Yoga. Just use any vegan mayo (Spectrum canola oil one for me) and vinegar (I used the apple cider one) in the 1/3 - 1/2 of the mayo amount and I also added some hot sauce, to taste. I love me some hot sauce!!

It was a marvelous meal! I liked it so much I had it again the next day, but I was out of broccoli slaw so I just used my dressing on a regular ol' salad of baby greens and baby carrots.

For dessert, I made a no-bake kumquat pie. It was...interesting. In fact, it still is since I haven't finished it yet. I didn't fall in love with it mostly because of a really strong soy taste. The recipe calls for whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk and kumquat puree. I pureed the fruit in a blender with no problems, and I made a coconut whipped cream lickety-split, but the third ingredient was the troublesome one.

I have some powdered soy milk, and I'm not crazy about the taste of it, and you can only imagine how the taste was intensified when I had to use three time as much to make it condensed. =\ Blegh. The rest of the stuff in the pie, including the whole wheat crust help the taste somewhat, but this is one recipe I won't be making again until I find another way of condensing vegan milk.

I keep the pie in the freezer.

The crust was pretty yummy:

Here's pictures of the wonderful coconut whipped cream as I was making it (and, ahem! eating it).

You can keep it in the fridge for AT LEAST a couple of days. HA! As if it's ever lasted that long around here.

Well, that's it for me, I will leave you with a picture of the best-tasting turd-shaped item ever (educated guess):

TAMARIND!!! Get it if you can find it.

Raw chocolate

2010-04-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

...give-away by Katie!!

Seems all I keep doing lately is link to give-aways but gosh I can't help it -- there are so many good ones out there!

Check out this one.

SOUP!!

2010-04-03T23:36:00.000-05:00

Ya. Caps AND exclamation points!

I love soup. A lot. Ad this soup is pretty darn satisfying. It is my veganized version of egg-drop soup.

It's really simple to make. Veggie broth (I used Imagine No-Chicken), add whatever stuff you like to it (mine had mushrooms, pea pods, celery and carrots) and instead of egg I added some silken tofu just before the soup was done. Plus, of course, udon noodles -- my fave!! You can even buy those from spelt or kamut flour or whole grain. =]

Cook it up, yo!

OMG BREAD GIVE-AWAY!!!!

2010-03-30T00:48:00.000-05:00

Bread -- fresh, warm, soft, straight out of the oven -- is my favorite thing to eat, and this blogger is giving a Dempster’s® OvenFresh™ bread away!! Check it out here.

God, please help me win this one.....

POMEGRANATE!!

2010-03-24T20:02:00.000-05:00

My favorite fruit! And Katie is giving POM juice away!!

What are you waiting for?? Go enter!

=D

Long wait, litle payout

2010-03-16T20:52:00.000-05:00

I promised a picture of the fully baked and frosted yummy vanilla cupcake a couple posts back and here it is:

It is frosted with a mixture of some Artisana coconut butter (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, heaven in a jar!) and honey.

Here, they sit ready to be smothered in some white, creamy deliciousness (!!!!! O_o Wait!?) and inserted into the mouth (.......now hang on a minute...).

I think tonight may need to be a short post. Ya. =\

Here you go, some food poooor... um, some food...~~excitement~~ ~~enticement~~ ~~pleasure~~ ~~stimulation~~ sensual -- ah, screw it! Cupcakes:

A week of couscous

2010-03-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

I've been eating a lot of couscous lately -- A LOT! It's the French whole wheat kind, and even though delicious (especially with a generous dollop of Sambal Oelek and vegan Smart Balance), it's a bit much eating it 5 days in a row.

But, it's been made and I don't really feel like cooking something else after work, so one more day and then I'll take a break so the next time I have it it'll have that first time out-of-this-world taste again.

Here's some pics:

I ate it with a spinach salad with edamame, avocado, green onion, and mustard/balsamic vinegar/herbs dressing.

And for breakfast, I've been munching on these awesome vanilla cupcakes from VegNews. Instead of water I used Silk Nog, I halved the recipe, and as a frosting I'm using a combo of Artisana Coconut Butter and sorgham syrup. What a way to start the day!! Who needs coffee -- I certainly never do. =]

Making the dough

(great for eating raw!)

Divide into muffin pan

(I was a little short of dough on a couple of them)

Finished product with he frosting coming soon!

Drinks are on me!

2010-03-09T20:36:00.001-06:00

Well, the recipes are. =]

Here's a staple in almost every vegan's (definitely raw foodist's) diet -- green smoothie!

It looks a lot more like a "purple" ice cream and that's because of two things:

1) LOTS of frozen berries I added

2) xanthan gum!

Ya, adding xanthan gum to your smoothies will make then thicken and have an ice creamy consistency, just ask Mama Pea. She completely changed the way I "drink" my smoothies now -- with a spoon!

Looks blurry but it's not how it tasted. =P

I buy tahini sometimes, and I did so again several months back. It's not a problem or anything, even though I sound like it, but every time I buy it I end up not having anywhere to use it. Especially lately, since I've started following proper food combining, I no longer put tahini in home-made hummus. So what to do with it...?

Well, I turned to the same source that taught me proper food combining: Gena of Choosing Raw -- make a sesame drink! Brilliant!! And totally delicious!

It's so creamy and frothy and smooth, I highly recommend it! Simple to make too: 1 part tahini to 4 parts water. Blend. Drink.

Sláinte!!!

Very pretty give-away

2010-03-02T22:36:00.000-06:00

These are so lovely, aren't they?

Well, Just Audrey is giving a $25 gift certificate for Glass Dharma (whose web-site I can't seem to get on right now) so make sure to enter!

To enter, click here.

Good luck everyone!

A veritable feast!

2010-03-02T15:41:00.000-06:00

It was!! I made hummus (to vegetarians and vegans what air is to the rest of humanity, little asked SAT question), added some good bread, veggies, water... HOLY MOLY!! =D Happy happy tummy!

Two kinds of hummus: artichoke-mushroom (with kalamata olives on the side)

*1/2 jar artichoke hearts

*sauteed mushrooms (seasoned)

*1 can garbanzo beans

*1 Tbsp soy milk powder dissolved in 2 Tbsp water (thicker consistency than regular soy milk)

*olive oil

*garlic powder (or cloves)

Feed into food processor, chop, chomp. In that order.

The second was sun-dried tomato-giardiniera with celery sticks:

OHMYGOD was this good!! Same deal as above, but sub tomatoes for artichokes and giardiniera for mushrooms. Add some nice, warm, freshly-baked Whole Foods bread to the mix, put your feet up, and don't look back.

Stevia?

2010-03-01T14:59:00.002-06:00

Yes, "stevia?" not "stevia." "Question mark" because I wanna know how the world feels about it. =]

I'm...on the fence. Recently I made pumpkin cheesecake (ok, like 4months ago). And I used stevia. (Not stevia? in this case.)

The usual suspects:

*1 pack MoriNu silken tofu

*5-6oz vegan cream cheese

*1 tsp vanilla extract

*1 can (14oz) cooked pumpkin

*dash of stevia

*graham cracker crust (crushed graham crackers, oil of some kind)

Pretty sure that was it. Simple. Looks nice.

Tastes...chemically. =\ Not very sweet. Not normal sweet. At least to me. In teas, I like it, and have no problems with the taste. Maybe stevia is just not meant for (baking and) such rich, luscious desserts as cheesecake. More along the lines of

I tried to improve the taste with some banana butter as a whipped-like topping

But it turns out I don't like that much, either.

On a totally unpredictable note, my husband, the anti-vegan, liked it. Go figure!

And Another!!!!!! *see below

2010-02-09T23:32:00.000-06:00

Gena, the awesome, awesome Gena from Choosing Raw is giving away a Tribest Blender -- PB-250 model. It features:

• Personal Blender Motor Base - 110V
• one Blending Blade Assembly
• one Grinding Blade Assembly
• two 16 oz BPA Free Blending Containers
• two 8 oz BPA Free Grinding Containers
• one commuter sipping lid
• three Regular Lids

I WANT!!!

Another give-away link!

2010-02-09T23:15:00.000-06:00

It's raining give-aways -- no, POURING!! Another awesome one:

Tasha, at The Voracious Vegan, is giving away delicious-sounding chocolates from Sweet Earth Chocolates -- they look so good, I might have to sample them before I win this one. ;]

Go check them out, right after you enter the give-away, and see what I'm talking about.

Chocolatey, smooth and spreadable -- no, it's not what you think...

2010-02-07T21:59:00.000-06:00

This is what I have enjoyed for breakfast a couple of times:

Sprouted bread, and chocolate soynut spread. It's I.M. Healthy Soynut butter with cocoa and it's not bad. So far it has served as a mediocre substitute for IT-THAT-SHALL-NOT-BE-NAMED (I'm really trying to kick the habit, so no names, k?). It's alright, but not top notch and not much for eating all on its own, like with a spoon, or butter knife, or fingers... =\

So, there ya go. If you've been thinking about buying it, um...now you have one thumb up. And you might love it, who knows. I'm curious to hear.

Spread the love, people.

p.s. Back angle:

Stevia give-away link

2010-02-07T16:03:00.001-06:00

If you're in the mood for a give-away, then head on over to Chocolate-Covered Katie's and enter her NuNaturals stevia give-away. Isn't she the most generous???!

<3 Katie!

Home-made Nutella

2010-02-06T20:12:00.002-06:00

I think it's clear, even with the handful of post I have, that Nutella and I share a torrid past I repeatedly try to forget and unsuccessfully move on from. An affair in which I drive by its house late at night to see if its car is parked outside; or if I might sneak a peek at another woman's spoon dipped deep into its luscious, chocolaty delight. I dial its cell late at night, many times, and promptly hang up after hearing the inviting "hello."

I yearn for its hazelnutty embrace, its smooth and creamy sweet nothings (literally!), its empty (calorie) promises of a healthy and prosperous relationship -- how bad can milk and its highly processed derivatives be for me, after all?!! I know they are all lies, for Nutella has nothing good to offer me. It will suck the life energy out of me and leave me panting on the floor in a stupor of ecstasy to lazily pick myself up after the sugar high has worn off.

I look for someone new. I look for someone who will offer the same passion and joy without the loss of self-respect. I continue to deceive myself I don't need it and can find fulfillment elsewhere. But, alas! I have searched hi and lo, tried to love over and over again, but none of it is ever the same. And I have no doubt that even after my vegan "I do's" I will still have late nights of running back to its warm yet shameful bed for just one more night of spreadable love.

I know and accept this because nothing will ever compare. And, truth be told, this recipe doesn't compare either, but it temporarily abates the craving.

Here it is, displaying its attributes on Ezekiel sprouted bread

I started with unsweetened 100% chocolate. I melted it and added some hazelnut butter. After mixing that I sweetened it with sorghum syrup. I didn't really measure any of the ingredients and I know how frustrating that can be -- it's annoying reading recipes that use phrases such as "eye-ball it," "'till it's done," or "to taste." And today I'm gonna be guilty of using just about all of them!

So, add sweetener "to taste." Mine was a combination of sorghum syrup and date sugar.

I used this entire chocolate bar, BTW

Then I stirred till my arm hurt and that was just the beginning...

Adding hazelnut oil and rice (or any other kind of) milk helped making stirring easier, but it's not like it was fun then, or anything.

...but it sure made it easier to stir cause the mixture was getting creamier. I also added soy milk powder which I think I will either omit next time or use a lot less of (you guessed it, I "eye-balled" the amount this time). I also believe the secret to getting it closer to tasting to the real thing is just the right amount of liquid (milk). I don't know how much that is right now, but I will look into it further with more precision when I make the next batch. Also, next time I'll use the honey/stevia combo instead of sorghum syrup/date sugar.

Stir, stir, and then stir some more "till it's done" and when you get there or have just had enough and/or no longer feel your arms, take a slice of bread, spread, and chomp.

I realize you can use a food processor instead of the old-fashioned bowl and wooden spoon combo, but my dishwasher isn't exactly working to the best of its ability and my desire so I went for an easy-to-wash-by-hand dish.

This particular batch needs heating before use since it hardens after sitting in the fridge, so I store it in the cabinet in a washed, old jar I found laying around (two guesses what used to be in it).

I would like to add that this recipe, especially if eaten with bread, is not properly combining food, which is a practice I have been trying to strictly adhere to. I plan on posting soon about some of the recent changes in my diet I've adopted. For now, if you're interested in proper food combining, read this post -- it has changed my life (and my constant bloating issues), as has Gena's Choosing Raw blog in general. I would love to hire her as my personal nutrition counselor, so I'm saving up! =]

Meatloaf time!

2010-02-03T20:03:00.002-06:00

I've been wanting to make a vegan meatloaf for a long time now, but have always bulked at the prospect because it somehow seemed difficult and tedious. Not so! This particular one I made was... somewhere between a "breeze" and "needing to run the dishwasher twice in two days." The clean-up was longer than the cook-up, but it was well worth both efforts, in my opinion.

This was my lunch yesterday:

"Meatloaf" with a side salad of mixed greens and baby spinach lightly drizzled with balsamic olive oil vinaigrette. Delish!! Just look at the richness of that "meatloaf:"

*1/4 C tomato paste

*2 T soy sauce or tamari

*1 t honey (or other sweetener)

*1/4 t paprika

*1 T minced garlic

*4 T olive oil

*1/2 C onion

*8 oz mushrooms, cut up in little pieces

*6 oz can of tomato sauce

*2 celery stalks, diced

*2 carrots, diced

*1 C brown (or other kind of) rice

*1 can kidney (or other kind of) beans

*salt

*pepper

*splash of hot sauce

*1 t Dijon mustard

*2 t dried parsley (or fresh, if you've got it)

*1 T cornstarch

*3/4 C (gluten-free) breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the first 4 ingredients and half of the garlic in a bowl. In a skillet, saute onions in olive oil first, then add mushrooms and saute until the juices run. In another skillet, with some olive oil, saute celery, carrots, and leftover garlic with some salt and pepper. Cover and cook 10-15min, stirring occasionally. Cook rice separately, too. (Told ya -- tons of cookware!) In a food processor mix rice and beans then place into a bowl. Then process the veggies. Place in the same bowl as the rice and beans. Add onions and mushroom mixture and the tomato sauce. Add the last 5 ingredients into the same bowl and mix everything together well. Press the mix into a greased loaf pan (or line the pan with foil) and pour the canned tomato sauce on top. Bake, covered with foil, for 45 minutes, then uncover and bake 15 more.

Done! Much simpler than it looks on "paper." (I love quotation marks, don't I?) (And brackets.) =D

And for dessert -- don't forget dessert! -- I had a monster home-made peppermint cup (like a Peppermint Patty and peanut butter cup combo. But without the peanut butter. Or the patty.)

Here's the aforementioned monster:

It's in a muffin holder!!! HUUUUUGE!!!!!!

...and OH. SO. DELICIOUS!!!

It made me happy. :D Almost as happy as punctuation makes me. But with more of a sugar high -- noticeably so!

I love dashes! And exclamation points!!

Nutella Oatmeal!

2010-01-28T20:35:00.003-06:00

YES!!! But, not using actual nutella 'cause it's chock full of whey and milk fats and stuff.

I used So Delicious Coconut Creamer Hazelnut mixed with some water, added cocoa and honey and -- SOOOOO DELICIOUS!!! (pun intended)

The recipe was inspired by the ever enticing mélange of oatmeal creations.

Some food porn for ya:

Only half-way there and already so full!!

p.s. Cocoa oatmeal pictures always look so...questionably #2-like in photos... =\ Bummer, cause they taste #1 in my book!!! :D

Looooooooooooooooong break...

2010-01-22T22:25:00.002-06:00

It's been forever since I wrote anything here, I took a very long break, but I have been eating in the mean time. Ain't no doubt.

So, here are some of the pictures of the yummy delish foods I have partaken in:

The banana cream pie I have promised to blog about ages ago (whoops!) and it was so-so. Mm...no, less than so-so. It was just so. =\

Moving on...

Yummy yummy potato enchilada!

My favorite salad -- red cabagge with cumin, mustard seasoning, lemon juice and peas!

Unbelievably good sushi, with brown rice and all sorts of veggies!

Some kind of soup I am sure I enjoyed:

Lord knows what was in it (but it's looking like peas, ya. Or lentil.).

Wonderfully tasty raw "fried rice" recipe over at DDD. Highly recommended!

Gobbled it up with some "crab" cakes. Tough recipe, ok taste.

This was one of my favorite meals ever! A keeper and a repeat offender in my future meal-planning, you can bet on it! Tempeh hot wingz, carrot fries and corn -- with my special dipping sauce (your fave hot sauce, vegan mayo and mustard).

One more for the road:

And today's (and yesterday's) lunch:

Salad greens with olive oil vinaigrette, roasted veggies, giardiniera, huge red olives, and home-made cashew cheese. Just look at that gorgeous "cheese:"

Oh My!! =P

I'll be back (not in two months, though -- promise!) with some more yummies.

In the mean time, eat, sleep and be merry; or go get married. Or drink. But don't drive.

And have it your way. =D

BEST. GIVE-AWAY. EVER!!

2010-01-20T16:34:00.000-06:00

As I said, best give-away ever!!! Chocolate Covered Katie is a give-away goddess, and I don't throw that title around casually. She earned this one! I am so PSYCHED! =D

Check it out!

...or don't! Actually. More chances for me to win, then. =]

Fudge Babies

2009-12-05T19:15:00.002-06:00

I've waited for-EVER to try out these delicious treats (Chocolate Covered) Katie has been talking about for a while now, and I can't tell you why! They are phenomenally tasty AND easy to make -- is there a better combo??!? I think not!

I started with, um...maybe 10 dates (I used fancy medjool) and a handful of roasted, salted peanuts -- ok, I could have been better at measuring my ingredients this time.

After blending this, I added 2 Tbsp cocoa and blended some more.

This is what it all looked like blended:

Looks kinda like dirt but it does not taste like it at all which is great news if you don't care for the way dirt tastes.

I rolled 'em up into balls and was hurrying up so much cause I was hungry that I spilled cocoa

Yes, woe is me, cause the spill only served to delay my food-to-mouth application time.

And -- voilà!!! Who could resist these?????

Not I! (*37.9 seconds later)

Try them and learn for yourselves how the size of these is inversely proportional to their deliciousness which is, in turn, inversely proportionate to their life spam. =| Sad fate for them, lucky for the rest of us! ;)

BON APPÉTIT!

Another awesome give-away!!!

2009-12-01T21:21:00.000-06:00

Best day ever for give-aways!!!! =D

Chocolate Covered Katie has THE BEST give-away imaginable -- Artisana butters! OH MY GOOD GOD!! I want this one so bad! Go and enter, what are you waiting for?!?!??! It's here.

Good luck (to only me :-D)!!

Give away (not mine)

2009-12-01T20:03:00.000-06:00

Go quickly to Diet, Dessert and Dogs and enter the matcha give-away. While you're there, check out the truffles -- don't they just make you wanna chomp on your screen??!?!?

p.s. New recipes coming soon!

Raw Wednesday

2009-10-28T22:48:00.002-05:00

I realized recently that, even though I've been eating vegan and lots of veggies and good stuffs, I've also been consuming a lot of fat, Mostly the good kind, but still a high percentage of it. Since going vegan was mostly an effort to eat healthier, I may have been negating some of my hard work.

So, I decided to try eating low-fat raw. Just for a week, see how it goes.

I like it.

It's not hard, it's pretty tasty, but it's a hell-of-a-lot of lugging, like carrying a ton of fruit to work. So, mostly eating raw is high on physical labor. I have 4 fruit meals a day, at least 3 of which are mono (just one type of fruit). And for dinner I usually have a vegetable meal. Those are delicious!!

I have a few pictures, some recipes, a recommendation here and there, so without further ado...

I started with something easy and sweet -- key lime pie! Oh so delicious, creamy and full of fat! But in small doses...

It was runny, and it somewhat resembled baby vomit, but if you can get past that, you'll enjoy it.

Here's the recipe:

-2 1/2 cups almond flour
-5 dates (I used medjool)
-2 Tbsp coconut oil

Mix in food processor then press into a 9" pie pan. Then:

-2 avocados
-1 banana
-1/2 cup mango (I used frozen)
-1/3 cup raw agave syrup
-1/3 cup coconut butter
-1 cup key lime juice
-2 tsp vanilla

Whirl all in a food processor till smooth, then pour into the crust and refrigerate overnight. Enjoy!

Aside from A GAZILLION different fruits I've had throughout the day, these were some of the dinners:

Zucchini fettucini with cucumbers, tomatoes, carrot strips and tahini sauce, all covered in spinach-avocado-red pepper dressing

Pretty good. Next, I also feasted upon this green concoction that had zucchini noodles, pesto and celery bits on top.

Nothing short of yummy! Here's the pesto recipe:

-2 bunches spinach

-2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes (mine were packed in oil)

-3 green olives

-1/4 cup walnuts (soaked in water for a couple of hours)

-2 tsp lime juice

-pinch savory

-pinch basil

-pinch black pepper

-pinch hot sauce

Blend, pour, enjoy!

This was a quick dinner assembly -- zucchini noodles (I recently bought a spiralizer, you can tell I'm getting my money's worth), spinach, cauliflower, carrots, red peppers and some more tahini sauce.

'Twas good. And this beauty --saved the best for last -- was devoured today:
yellow squash (gotta change it up a bit) noodles, marinara sauce and corn.

DEVOURED!! DEE-VOURED!

Marinara recipe:

-1 tomatoe

-2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes (mine were, again, packed in oil)

-1/2 cup mushrooms (soaked in warm water)

-6 large, pitted, red olives (or any other color)

-1/2 red pepper

-1 Tbsp hot sauce

-juice of 1 lime

-any seasonings you like (I put savory, rosemary, parsley, black pepper, basil, oregano and a minimal amount of celery salt)

Mix all in a processor then top with warm water-soaked corn and some raw Parma vegan parmesan.

There you go. Raw stuff. And yummy. But, heavy. To carry, that is... Really mostly the fruit.

So try it out, see how you like it and then let me know what you think.

Toodles (or roodles = raw noodles. That's right, I'm punny! =] )

ps Tomorrow -- RAW SUSHI!!! Oooooooh! =P

Ooh -- spikey!

2009-10-25T20:22:00.003-05:00

Ever since Katie of the Chocolate-Covered Katie blog had a "try new foods" month-long event a while back, I've been trying to do just that. And the latest food I tried was durian.

In case you know nothing of durian I'll tell you right away that every article I read on the internet about it, from how to open it to where it grows, ALSO mentioned the smell associated with it. Most people hate the smell and have a hard time getting past it. Some, however, don't seem to mind it. So, firm in my belief that the vanilla-custardy richness the taste has been described as is enough of a motavator to ignore the smell, I decided to buy one. It didn't much smell while still in the shell, it didn't take too long to open it, and the first few bites were truly delicious. As I suspected, the smell wasn't overwellming, so I ate a whole...um, kidney-like unit.

That's what it looks like open. The taste is very rich and filling, so I decided to put the rest into a container and refrigerate it. And when next I opened it to show my husband, several dormant hours later, IT REEKED!! I mean, pungently, horribly, awfully, unbearably so! I nearly fainted. Ok, the last is an exaggeration, but still... I put it under the stove fan for an hour or so, hoping to dispell enough smell to make it edible again, but no such luck. Any time it was repacked agian, it needed but a mere several minutes to accumulate enough of the odor to render pepper spray in the face a "pleasureable experience."

I tried mixing it in with some coconut milk and cacao, working as fast as I could, believe me, then froze whatever I could fit into a chosen container whose tragic destiny awaits (it will be destroyed!) and threw out the rest. I tried, I really did. This is the picture I managed to take of the durian in the tupperware. If the picture looks skewed it's cause I was holding my nostrils with one hand.

Pity. It was so rich and creamy...

Oh well. Can't win 'em all!

p.s. If you ever happen to try durian in the future after this glowing review, I'd like to know what you think.

Raw Foods

2009-10-24T18:22:00.002-05:00

I've been reading a lot of raw food blogs lately, and some of the food loks delicious. So, I've decided to try them out.

Here's THE BEST thing I've eaten in a while -- banana soft serve! Amazing!! And with a little bluberry-mango topping it was finger-licking good. Try this, you might never need regular ice cream again.

As you can see, I couldn't even wait to take a quick picture before I dug into it. It will become a staple in my diet from now on.

For dinner I had a salad with tahini sauce dressing and some spinach pesto with avocado and red peppers. I peeled zucchini to resemble fettucini, added tomatoes and cucumbers, and the results were pretty damn awesome:

I will try and eat raw for the entire week, starting tomorrow, and I've already made a key lime pie that looks delicious but it has a couple of hours in the fridge before I can post the verdict, so look out for that.

2009-10-18T17:02:00.002-05:00

Here's a dish that was such a joy to eat I had it three times in a row!! And it looks pretty:

Roasted veggies (broccoli, carrots, pea pods, cherry tomatoes), tofu burger, and creamy polenta made with Follow Your Heart cream cheese. And I made a sauce to go with the burger with dijon musturd, Spectrum mayo, and hot sauce -- DELICIOUS!!!!! =P

But, I have realized recently, looking back at my food choices, that I eat a high percentage of fat in my diet. Good, or not, fat is not to be eaten in excess, I believe. So, I've decided to try the 811rv diet for three days hence avoiding a lot of fat foods.

I'll post later about how that went (once it actually has gone). Thus, I leave you (and me!) to enjoy a picture of some gorgeous, incredibly tasty food none of us can eat. But, we can drool and moan (or, you can just go and make it).

Encore:

Toodles!

Brownies for Breakfast!

2009-10-16T22:27:00.002-05:00

Yes, I had brownies for breakfast almost this entire week! And they were pretty good. I made them with carrot puree and soaked walnuts. Add some Trader Joe's mint chocolate caps and -- ya! Good combo.

The recipe is pretty simple:

-1/3 cup mint chocolates

-1 cup carrot puree

-1/2 cup date sugar

-1/4 cup applesauce (I use unsweetened)

-1/4 cup cocoa powder

-2 tsp vanilla extract

-2 Tbsp canola oil

-3/4 cup oat flour

-1 tsp baking powder

-2/3 cup chopped walnuts (soaked for at least a couple of hours)

-pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Melt the mint chocolates and in a large bowl combine with carrot puree, sugar, cocoa, oil, vanilla and applesauce. Mix till it looks creamy. Stir in oat flour, baking powder, walnuts and salt. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan and bake for 35-40min. Cool and cut into squares.

Dig in!

2009-10-08T21:37:00.002-05:00

As promised, here's today's lunch -- lentil soup and polenta chips (with some spicy mayo sauce and a teeeny dessert):

The lentil soup is sooo easy to make. Cover lentils with stock or seasoned water, add veggies you like (I added chopped carrots and celery), a Tbsp or so of oil if you want, bring to a boil, cover and cook for 45-50min. And, of course, I added cayenne pepper. ;]

The recipe for polenta chips is here, except I added 2Tbsp of Follow Your Heart cream cheese.

The chips alone:

Oh, and for breakfast, I Hugged-a-carb! =D
Oatmeal with chocolate pudding stirred in -- oh, Heaven!!!!!

My chocolate pudding had:

*1/3 cup silken tofu (1 package of pre-sweetened caramel flavored Pete's tofu 2 go, which they don't seem to make anymore)

*2 Tbsp almond butter
*1 banana
*2 heaping tsp cocoa
*dash of salt
*vanilla extract

All intimately acquainted each other in the food processor.

2009-10-05T22:09:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I know I said "lentil soup and polenta chips" next, but I seriously have to give a shout-out to Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese first! I tried it yesterday for the first time, the herbs and chives one, and OH MY GOD!! is it delicious! Seriously a must-try! =D Loving it!!

I had it with cucumber and green pepper slices on Rose's vegan gluten-free bread. Heeeea-van!

What are you waiting for -- go on and try it. =]

Vegan MoFo is here!!!

2009-10-04T18:45:00.002-05:00

It's that time of the year again! And this is my first time being a part of it -- very excited! =D

So I decided to open with an old favorite of mine. My grandma made these all the time when I was young and I loved them. Recently, I asked her how she used to make them, added a few (vegan, gluten-free) modifications, and -- voilà!

I took pictures of a few steps to make it easier. Hope it helps.

CHERRY POTATO DUMPLINGS

Amounts of ingredients are a little tricky, my grandma was the "eyeball it" type. So, I'll say 1lb potatoes to 1 - 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 egg (replacer), 10-ish cherries, some oil and some bread crumbs (about 2Tbsp each), and as much sugar as you want.

1) Cut up and cook potatoes as you would when making mashed potatoes, but only add a little salt to the water and no milk.

2)When they were soft enough to pierce with fork, I added a 1/2 Tbsp butter (I used Earth Balance sticks) and went to mashing.

3)Slowly, I added 1/2cup of potato flour, but you can add any flour you want. Next time, I think I'll try oat flour to make the finished product taste less potato-y. Then I added milled flax seed and water (in a 1:3 ration) as an egg substitute, and mixed it all up. Here's the way the dough looks after all that:

4)Start boiling a pot of water.

By the way, these are the ingredients I used:

5)Roll a tablespoon amount of dough into a ball with your hands. Then, take a pitted cherry (I used frozen, unsweetened ones) and stick it in the middle of the ball you just made. Close the hole by adding a bit more dough to cover the cherry and rolling it into a ball again with your hands.

6) Place the ball into a pot of boiling water. Don't crowd the pot with dumplings. Wait a couple minutes more after they've floated to the top and then transfer into a pan with hot olive oil and bread crumbs.

7)Roll the dumplings around the pan so they are covered with the oil/crumb mixture.

8)Place hot dumplings onto a plate and dust with sugar (I used date sugar)

[BEST PART!]9) Eat!

Sorry about the crappy pictures, but the lighting in my kitchen sucks. I'll try to fix that in the future.

Next up: polenta triangles and lentil soup. Oh, joy!

Gone for a loooooong time!

2009-09-24T21:52:00.001-05:00

Yes, I've been gone for a looooooooong time -- vacation and before that crazy busy at work.

But I'm back, with a vengeance! Yeah.

So, Katie, at the Chocolate-Covered Vegan has another give-away. You can view it here.

I would looooooooooove to win this one! Wish me luck, all. =]

New Food Challenge

2009-05-30T19:29:00.002-05:00

Katie over at Chocolate Covered Katie has a try-a-new-food-challenge going this month, and I decide to participate.

...and I tried jicama. Didn't much care for it. I tried it raw and the taste was a combination of watercress, onion and mild apple -- euwwgggh. =p

But, I baked it in the oven as "fries" and covered it in either chili or spicy "cheese" sauce and it wasn't soo bad that way. But I definitively won't be going back to this one.

Here's some pictures:

with chili,

with "cheese" sauce,

Well, here's to new experiences!

"Tried and Tasted"

2009-05-12T13:08:00.001-05:00

One of the major contributors to me going vegan again was the FatFree Vegan Kitchen blog I frequent and cook from. Even as an omnivore, I was able to find delicious recipes that both I, and my picky family, could enjoy. The cook, SusanV, masterfully avoids using added fat in her recipes without losing so much as a morsel of flavor in her dishes

Since I've been cooking Susan's recipes for myself for ages now, I decided to give the Tried and Tasted a go which was started by Zuzana of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen and is, as she says, "an opportunity to thank your fellow bloggers for sharing their recipes by re-creating them and writing about your experiences."

The recipe I decided to recreate is the lasagna. I had high hopes for this dish and have been eyeing it for a while now, since it's one of her daughter's favorites. And believe me, E (her daughter) is not often wrong!

I made my own marinera sauce, bought rice lasagna noodles by DeBoles which are great to work with. No pre-boiling, pre-cooking needed -- you just stack and stick (in the oven). I had no spinach in the house, so I used kale. Cooked that with some water and apple cider vinegar in a 2:1 ration of liquids for 10min or so. Yummy! And I don't much care for nutritional yeast, especially in cheeze recipes, I used 1/2 cup cashews. Otherwise, I followed the recipe to a "T." All I have to say is, E was right! Scrumptious!

Here's a few (really lousy) photos:

It was lunch at work for a week!!

Oh, and did I mention I ate it with Namaste brownies and DDD's Sweet Almond Sauce for dessert?

Soy patties -- too yummy for words!

2009-04-28T23:30:00.001-05:00

These were a recent invention, but I fell in love with them with all of my vegan heart and I know they will soon be on the menu again! Here's one -- isn't it a beaut?!! (That's roasted broccoli and green beans and butternut squash risotto with.)

And the recipe:

SOY PATTIES

Ingredients

Patties
-2/3 cup cooked soy beans

-2 boiled artichoke hearts

-1/4 cup jalapeno slices (from a can)

-1/4 frozen zucchini slices

-1 tsp minced garlic

-1/5 of a red (or green) onion, sliced

-1/4 tsp paprika

-1/2 cup blanched almonds

-1 cup baby spinach

-1 cup mushrooms

-1 tsp creole seasoning

-salt and pepper

-1/2 tbsp sesame seeds

-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

-1 tsp parsley

-1 tbsp milled flax seed

-3 tbsp water

-2 tbsp vegan parmesan

-1 cup oats

“Mayo” dip

-2 tbsp vegan mayo

-1 tbsp hot sauce

-2 tsp mustard

Put cooked soy beans, cooked artichoke hearts, jalapenos, frozen zucchini slices, minced garlic, red onion and paprika into a food processor and chop. Place in a bowl. Add blanched almonds into food processor and grind. Add to bowl. Place baby spinach and cooked mushrooms (seasoned with creole seasoning) into processor and chop. Add to bowl. Add salt, pepper, sesame seeds, red pepper flakes, parsley, vegan parmesan and oats to the bowl. Mix. Form into patties and cook in olive oil until brown. Serve with hot “mayo.”

Easy peasy!

Fritters

2009-04-23T12:41:00.001-05:00

My favoritest black bean fritters!! Plus, mashed cauliflower with mushroom gravy, spicy "mayo" and roasted green beans and broccoli -- heaven!

Hello blogosphere!

2009-04-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

Testing...testing...

Coming up: lunch! Stay tuned