Soft Tacos!

I get home from a two hour drive and a full day of movin' and shootin' in the sun only to realize. . .I have not eaten all day!  I mean sure I had a hand full of granola here and a few almonds there but really not nearly the calorie count I need to be as active as I am!  Solution, Soft Tacos from heaven!  These bad boys are made with rice and beans, peach salsa and wilted chard.  The extra body comes from braised bell peppers and zucchini.  Lets break it down a little bit more.

The beans were a quick job.  After cooking two cups of beans in a pressure cooker for almost an hour, I took a few spoon fulls (probably a cup cooked beans) and simmered them with garlic powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and coconut oil (though olive or safflower would have been fine).  After they simmered enough that they began to mush I tossed in a hand full of corn kernels (cut off the cob by a lovely housemate) and turned off the heat.  

The rice was brown and delicious! 2.5 cups of rice with 5 cups of water, a healthy pinch of salt and a few tomatoes diced up small.  I salted the rice but left it relatively plain so I could use it as a flavor gradient [that is if the beans are on one side and the salsa is on the other the rice takes on the flavor at each end and provides a balance in the way they mix]  

For the wilted chard we will have to ask Emily but she 'over slated' them and I thought they were perfect

the zucchini was a seat of my pants braising!  Get your cast iron SUPER hot with just a bit of oil, toss in your zucchini so it sizzles then add a dash of balsamic, a squeeze of braggs and a hint of vegan Worcestershire suace.  All that wet cooks away fast so turn down the heat and let it 'burn' onto the zucchini to give a quick-grill-feel.  

Peach salsa was a bit of a sham since I forgot the lime AND the Cilantro (which davey will be happy about).  Diced tomatoes, sliced onions, minced garlic, minced jalapeno, a dash of apple cider vinegar (in an attempt to make up for missing lime) and one average peach diced up.  Mix and let it sit long enough that the flavors really mix together (10 minutes minimum).  

Putting all this in a little tortilla is hard but that is why I have six tacos!  And look at that, I got to top it with a lovely slice of avocado!  

Not quite Summer Pasta

It is late enough in the year that we are out of preserved tomatoes and not yet time for tomatoes from the garden!  Of course I could pop over to the store and get a can of sauce but sometimes food is enough work that going to the store makes it too much work!  It is also fun to be creative with food. . . to explore within the restrictions of the kitchen.  So I present to you a lovely pasta dish sans tomato.  This is essentially an garlic butter sauce on fusilli pasta (spirals).  Ironically we were also out of olive oil (my first choice in making a garlic sauce) and earth balance (my second choice though i usually like to cut it with other oils).  I 'resorted' to coconut oil.  since cocnut oil has a distinct flavor I dont like to use it when making sauces unless I am looking for a coconut flavor but it is still a perfect choice for this pasta.  Just having a bowl of pasta with garlic and oil is great but I like to toss in some color and flavor.  If you did want to go for the basic start with pressing or finely dicing garlic into a dish and mixing it with the oil so the flavor can diffuse. Cook and drain your pasta, lightly salt and pepper then toss with your garlic oil.  Different people have different enjoyments of oil so the amount can really vary but if this is your principle sauce you want a little less than a table spoon of garlic oil for every cup of pasta. I encourage you to start with less and slowly add.  Remember adding oil to pasta is easy taking it back out. . . .well.

To add some oomph I tossed in some diced broccoli, sliced kalmata olives, some kale stems I had been saving and then a handful of beans left over from making chili.   Adding these accoutrements doesnt just give you a bit of green and protein for your diet, it also adds color and texture and flavor.  I know it is important to keep things like calories, fat and protein in mind when you eat but damn it eating should be fun your food should be pretty and taste great!  The fact that this dish has a good mix of nutrients is just a bonus.

(and again I wish I had an avocado handy)

Two Weeks in the Appalachia Hills of NC

So I really do mean to do this on a more regular basis but life does not always slow down enough for me to show off my meals the way I want to.  So after two weeks of INCREDIBLE meals all you get is a quick report on the foods and only the scantest of clues on how to make it.  If I were not leaving tomorrow for another trip I would honestly try to be more detailed in my meal preparation and thought process.  

Two Weeks of Tasty Food

Kale Salad

Kale salad with an avocado lemon vinaigrette with fresh corn, grated beets and carrots.  The body is hefted up with a bit of shredded cabbage and topped with crushed walnuts and a few more slices of avocado

Buffalo Fries

It seemed abnormal to go to the south without having buffalo wings but the next best thing is buffalo fires with home made 'wing' sauce.  I used a lot of extra pepper and pinch of salt and so much garlic that I ahrdly tasted the spicy delicious wing sauce

 Buckwheat Pancakes
I was visiting a wheat free friend but that did not deter us from pancakes with maple syrup.  The amazing thing about the east coast is blueberries grow wild!  the bananas are still imported but a morning walk to harvest blueberries made these things so much more worth it!

Shredded salad and mushroom risotto 

One of the many amazing dinners consisted of carrot/beet/cabbage salad with almonds, raisins and, sesame seeds.  The salad was dressed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  The risotto was rich and delicious and could have used more mushrooms but was a nice compliment to the salad.

Indian Dinner
One lovely night we threw a dinner party with Red Dhal soup, turmeric rice (didnt have any saffron so did our best), pumpkin curry and a green salad.

more salad

massaged kale with romaine lettuce.  The tomatoes and peppers came from the small garden on site and the diced almonds came with me from Cali!

 Simple Dinner
Steamed carrots and purple cabbage topped with sauteed potatoes and bell peppers.

Hash brown Breakfast
shred potatoes, shred yams, garlic and onions!  I am always a fan of hash browns but for some reason these were extra good.  Top potatoes with avocado and Chihuly hot sauce and you are always on the right track.

potato stew

I was not thrilled with my first go at buckwheat biscuits but they added a nice body to the stew as they melted in.  The stew was a slow roast with potato carrot cabbage in a tomato base with a lot of garlic and some onion.  

Mexican Dinner
Turns out North Carolina does not offer a lot of Mexican food.  This was the last night as a going away treat to remind my friend what is waiting for her in California.  Salsa fresca Mexican spiced black beans with a side of Spanish rice. Fresh corn and guacamole to make tacos with corn tortillas was like heaven!

Salad once more

On the night I met Debra Frasier, Liz and I shared kale salads.  Shredded carrots, shredded beats, tomatoes from the garden, fresh corn, bell peppers and a lemon vinaigrette.  I ate it and wanted more and more and more!  I dont thing there is anything I like as much as a well made salad!  

I have no idea what I am going to eat for the next two weeks but once I am back we will all know! 

Eat Lunch!

I am still not tired of okra!  Todays version?  This is garlic brazed okra in coconut oil with rosemary.  I served it over re-fried beans with a helping of sliced cherry tomatoes.  I ate it with tortilla chips but ti would have been fine with rice or quinoa or any other grain.

a not on cooking okra:  most people don't like it because of the slimy texture it has when cooked improperly.  The trick is to fry it alone in oil, the thick gooey part which most people find unpleasant is a water soluble  compound that is not 'activated' in oil.  Meaning if your fry the okra in a really hot pan with oil you make something delicious! 

Boxed Lunch

Between TA second summer session, taking photos for as many events as I can, some recurring emotional turmoil, recovering from my sprained ankle, an internship and trying to find a stable job I am going to be boxing up my lunch more often.  Unfortunately for me that means having to think a lot harder about what I make, not only do I need to think tasty but I also need to think about what travels well, stores for 3-5 hours and is tasty edible at close to room temperature.  That makes a quick Mexican meal an easy choice.  

I made re-fried beans with sauteed onion garlic, jalapeno and corn and a hearty amount of salt and oil (key to making it creamy smooth and yummmmm).  The tortillas are home made from white masa flour with garlic added in.  In place of Spanish rice I had a large couscous salad made with grilled summer squash and okra.  To top it off salsa fresca smothers the re-fried beans to increase the vegetable content.  

Honestly it is better hot with tortillas fresh off the grill but a life on the go has particular demands.  Keep watching for more quick meals (though I am likely to be eating a lot of left overs from dinner for lunch)

Chilli Con YUM!

Chilli does not inherently mean chilli con carne, I know most people jump to that conclusion and instantly ask me 'chilli how do you make that vegan?' but chilli actually refers to the plant! if you make a meat stew with tomatoes it is just a meat stew until you add the chilli.  So the question becomes what makes a good chilli?

Mostly it is this mass of stuff.

The 'sausage' on the right is a vegan soy and wheat based  medium for flavor and spices and usually I dont use products that most refer to as 'meat substitutes' (really they are nothing like meat and calling them a meat substitute generates a false conception of what you are eating) because I like to avoid processed foods but I got it as a gift and dense protein like that goes a good distance for bulking up a chilli.  

Chilli Con Vegetables:

     The key to the chilli I make is having a strong vegetable base, using vegetables that caramelize or release sugar at the same time the supply earthy undertones.  This of course means onions(1/2 diced) and garlic (5-500 cloves minced) but also includes potato (didn't use it this time), Corn(didnt use) carrot(3 average), zucchini(2 small) and beet(1 average).  I particularly like using red beets because it makes the color of the chilli POP and adds a sweetness that is balanced by the spicy.  Of course if you go too heavy on the beet you end up with something that looks other worldly in the vibrancy of its reds.  

The root vegetable base is shredded so it will cook down fall apart and turn into a sauce.  This means the chilli should be started early because it takes over an hour of simmering vegetables in oil to get them to start to fall apart.  I usually simmer the onions a bit before that and add the bell pepper and garlic a bit later, though the bell pepper does not fall apart quite the same way leaving a few chunks for diversity in texture. 

(side note:  while the vegetables simmer you can pressure cook the beans which also take about an hour)

 After the vegetables starts to brown and fall apart you can toss in the veggie sausage and break it into nice bit size pieces and let it all keep simmering until the vegetables really become mush.  

 The mush never looks that good but oh it smells mouthwatering and now it is time to turn the mush into sauce.  The main part of this is adding fresh tomatoes (or some tomato sauce) and to my luck the sun golds were ripe early this year so they made an awesome chilli! Wash them and cut them in half to facilitate the 'saucing' and add in some extra olive oil (2-4 Table spoons).

By now the beans are hopefully ready.  What beans you ask?  well as I do I usually use a base of pinto beans(2 C dry) add in some kidney beans (1 C dry) some black beans (.5C dry) and Garbanzo beans (.5C dry).  Keep in mind those amounts will make A LOT of chilli but if you make it right it will not last that long.  Pressure cook the beans with 10C water (reduce the amounts of beans if your pressure cooker is smaller).

Once the beans go in (they can be a bit under cooked since they are going to simmer) the chilli is essentially ready.  It is not really ready until it simmers for at least an hour. In all honesty it would be even better if it could simmer for three hours (and even better if you let it cool and sit over night before reheating and serving).

Zucchini Corn Bread:

     I pretty much made up this recipe on the spot combining my friends zucchini bread recipe (dont know where she got it) with my favorite corn bread recipe (came out of vegan with a vengeance or how it all vegan or from another friend but ti has been in my recipe box long enough that I dont know anymore) 

Mix the dry ingredients (white flour, corn flour, baking soda, cinnamon, sugar, salt), fold in the wet ingredients (oil, water, vanilla, zucchini) until it makes a nice heavy batter.  This stuff is dense so try not to over mix it, press it into a pan and bake it at 350 for 45 minutes (you can make it while the beans and vegetables are cooking) 

I served it with a Spanish rice, a strawberry smoothie and a few slices of melon.  

It is a great meal to celebrate 11 years of being vegan :)

Speedy Lunch

I know I know. . .I need to do a full meal and get back to explaining how to make plant based living seem simple and fun! Time keeps getting away but at least I keep lunch coming :)  

This one is a bit of a cheat.  I used the re-fried beans Johnny made earlier in the week with the Barley I made tuesday night (easier than making rice and damn barley is good! ) to make somethign like an open faced taco . . .no not a tostada, the tortilla is not fried and there is not tomato or lettuce for it to be a tostada.  I did dress the tortilla with a bit of oil, garlic powder and nutritional yeast.  I also topped the barley/bean mix with fresh avocado and cilantro.  It was really yummy so I had seconds (and thirds .. .i eat a lot)

Salads for Dinner

Some days are just not what you want them to be. . . .your mind gets stuck on some idea and you spend a beautiful day inside writing letters you are never going to send. There is only one thing that helps . . . 

COMFORT FOOD

Potato salad, pasta salad a nice green salad to get those vitamins minerals and fiber and then a bean salad for that protein kick that makes tomorrow easier.  Ill tell you right now that this is going to be level less 'recipe' than usual.  I did some experimenting with the potato salad and it was PHENOMENAL.  

So lets turn this mass of veggies---->

<----------- into this mass of tasty!

The pasta salad get nixed in this post, because well it is a day like that but it is pretty simple.  Cooked pasta tossed with peas corn garlic and olive oil.  Salt and pepper to taste. For ratios you want to aim for something that is mostly pasta accentuated with some vegetables. 

 The green salad is also straight forward.  I used a spring mix with raisins, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, diced almonds, some shredded radish and a sprinkling of calendula petals for color!  Calendula (aka marigolds) have edible petals  that dont have much in the way of flavor but add amazing color to salads with a texture that is consistent with the rest of the dish. 

Bean Salad:

   Using a pressure cooker (or enough forethought that you soak the beans beforehand and have enough time to cook them)  prepare enough beans for your meal; I did about 3 cups dry white beans and 1 cup dry kidney beans (it comes out to about 6 cups of cooked beans) 

 I diced in some raw beets to add some color and sweetness and a bunch of long beans cut into one inch segments.  I also shredded carrot and zucchini into the mix.  Not only does this give an additional texture and some bonus vegetation but ti also provides more color which makes your typical bland bean salad seem fun and exciting! 

Seasonings can be as simple as salt and pepper but I strongly urge the use of some summer time herbs like oregano basil and thyme.  We had a bounty of rosemary in the kitchen so I used that as my primary flavor, using paprika to add a bit of spice and color (yes paprika can have spice you just need to get the fresh stuff)

 of course I used fresh grated garlic, yum! 

I tossed the salad with a combination of olive oil and white wine vinegar (though you can use any vinegar you like).  I wan to make up some measurement for how much I used but I honestly have no clue, though you do want about equal parts oil and vinegar!  The goal here is to make the salad moist without drowning it, add in slow amounts alternating olive oil then vinegar (too much olive oil is easier to deal with than too much vinegar) until the beans are evenly coated without there being a pool of 'dressing' in the bottom of the bowl

Potato Salad:

    I have a problem with potato salad. . . I dont like mayonnaise.  I didnt like it when I was an omnivore and i found the vegan versions just as unappealing.  I still used it when I was making some dishes but damn it!  I didnt want to this time.  I used an adaptation of a cream sauce I made for a pasta primavera alfredo.  Again with a bit of forethought I would have soaked the almonds for 30-60 minuted before I made this but i didnt know I was going to do this until i was in the store holding a jar of vegan mayo and cringed.  

I blended 1 cup of almonds with 1 large block of silken tofu (seemed about 2 cups worth) and 1/2 cup olive oil.  knowing that this was going to a potato salad I was not shy about using some vinegar to thin it out (just a couple table spoons) 

I used mustard, a pinch or two of salt and a bit more vinegar for flavoring while a few more splashes of olive oil were there to push the sauce to a more creamy texture.  I was surprised at how quickly  it all came together but in the time it took the potatoes to boil I ended up with my own vegan sauce for potato salad (That I refuse to call mayo because it is nothing like that stuff).

You cook the potatoes . . .just boil them.  I like to used red potatoes boiled in an open pot so I can make sure they dont get over done.  For my house i sued five pounds of potatoes (you might as well too because left over potato salad is GREAT).   

Mix the potatoes with the almond-tofu sauce (lets call it almofu sauce, or someone make up a word for this stuff we need a vocabulary to describe these things that does not relate it to some dairy counterpart) a hearty helping of black pepper and grated garlic ( i must have grated 20 cloves for this meal) and some diced parsley.  I also diced it the celery greens because I like the color and flavor.  I dont grate carrots for this dish, I coarsely chop them with the celery because then everything has a comparable texture.  I also use a few spoon fulls of sweet pickle relish to round out the pallet of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy.  

I feel like I am forgetting something but like I said it was an experiment and I will have to repeat it again and see what changes. . .though i hope nothing because I could have eaten this potato salad for days! (though my brother would not even try it, he has something against pickles in relish form or otherwise).

(the change in coloring of the potato salad is due to lighting only)

Enjoy!

Taquitos and Tacos!

I went shopping!  the goal was to make four different types of taquitos to explore different tastes and textures.  Knowing I would not make enough taquitos to feed the house I also made extra filling of each to serve as the base for tacos that would be topped with salsa fresca, shredded lettuce, carrot and radish. 

The potato taquitos were made with this turkish spice that I really like which is predominantly paprika but I have yet to ask Justin what it is. I supplemented with salt pepper tumeric curry spice and cumin to round out the flavor.  Season to taste! always season ti to the way you want ti to taste so you can enjoy it, this includes compensating for how the flavor changes as it cooks, in particular spicyness will decrease a bit  and herbyness will increase.  If you are cooking for other people (say someone who hates spice) you can either laugh at them as they bite into your taquito or you can take the time to set aside some potatoes and spice it with hem in mind.  Toss them in olive oil and bake at 400 for about an hour. 

Chiplotle tofu seemed like a must.  . .well chipotle something at least.  I crumbled the tofu and tossed it with chipotle, paprika garlic powder, spike(my favorite powdered vegetable bullion) , pepper and olive oil.  Before baking I let it sit for about 30 minutes so the flavor could soak in.  I just threw it in the oven with the potatoes and took it out 25 minutes later. it was brown and crispy and spicy!  I could have done a bit more to make it saucy but it worked.  I think next time I will make a chipotle sauce to mix it with after baking.  This would also help in the taquito rolling phase since the sauce (I am imagining a pretty thick sauce) would hold things in place better.  

Sweet potatoes get cubed and steamed.  Just 15 minutes in steam is enough to make these sweet tubers mashable.  I mixed in a bit of salt and olive oil but wanted to let the sweetness really shine so I stayed away from my typical arsenal of savory spices. 

not pictures here is the garlic black beans which I made. . . not sure where those pictures ended up but I did have some problem with my camera earlier in the week.  We will just have to do black beans another time and shift our focus to the tortillas which are made form scratch. 

Buy a masa mix.  It is a medium ground corn meal with lime.  the acidity helps bring out the starchyness of corn so it makes for good tortillas (at least that is what I was told once and it sound good enough to propagate whether it is totally factual or not).  Knead together 2 cups of masa with 1 cup water and a pinch of salt and you are already half way to making tortillas.

I am lucky enough to have a tortilla press in my house so I dont need to roll out the dough and then get something round to cut out the shape I want.  I take a small lime sized piece of dough (golf ball sized for sporty people) and press it, using an old plastic bag as my make-shift wax paper to assist removal from the tortilla press.   

 Cook those lovely tortillas for about 2 minutes on each side on a hot griddle/ in a cast iron pan and you are ready to start into taquito land proper!

We have our 4 fillings to work with (with a close up of the beans since there are not enough gratuitous black bean pictures yet) and each tortilla gets about 1.5 Tbs of filling and rolled into the approximate shape of a taquito. (yes the tortillas below are store bought, the home made were saved for the tacos) 

The biggest problem I had was that the beans and tofu were not held together enough.  Both potatoes did quite well and I think if I mashed the black beans a bit more it would have made the rolling a bit easier, still came out delicious! I brushed the tortillas with canola oil and then put them in the oven at 400 for around 45 minutes (the last 10 minutes were actually at 450 because I wanted my taquitos extra crispy)

To go with the taquitos, Guacamole of course. Avocado cut in half, pit removed and SMASHED into bowl.

mix in salt pepper some lime juice 5-60 cloves of garlic ( i used 5 cloves finely grated for 4 avocados worth) and you are done!  I put in a spoon full of salsa fresca for color and flavor but you are getting dangerous with the purity of what is guacamole if you push that too far! 

salsa fresca?  diced tomatoes green onions and garlic. Toss ti with a healthy squeeze of lime juice an a hearty pinch of salt and pepper . . .done and done! 

out of the oven I was so excited that I burned my mouth as I tried to eat one of the sweet potato taquitos right away ( did I mention this was the first time I made taquitos?).  So let them cool but dont let them get cold, these baddies are best eaten hot and often!  I am happy to say that none of the 30 taquitos I made were left at the end of dinner.  

Taco Bar!

Taquito Bliss! served with a cabbage salad that Ashley made that has an amazing creamy tahini grapefruit vinaigrette to go with it.