Cantaloupe Salad

As a way to show off how hard it is to mess up a salad I decided to do something a bit counter intuitive.  I happen to have a farm fresh cantaloupe that needs eating and more salad to make so I just put the two together!   I made the exact same salad I did last time with: corn tomato onions and garlic.  When I thought about it The idea of adding cantaloupe to this mix just seems wrong so I came up with two plans.

1) I would make the same salad and use a cantaloupe salad dressing

2) I would add chunks of cantaloupe to the salad and use the cantaloupe dressing

I will admit, the main reason I came up with two plans is because I assumed adding cantaloupe to the salad was a mistake. . .but ti wasn't and we will get to that more in just a bit.

First I want to elaborate on the cutting corn in half before you de-cob it.  This little trick works for any round thing.  Round objects are hard to cut, they always try to roll away and if you manage to get it in a non-roll-away position pushing too hard with your knife will send it rolling! Of course an obvious solution is to get a super nice knife that is so sharp you dont need to press hard.  The other is to make on simple cut to create a flat side.  A lot of the food we will cut will have a side we need to cut off anyway.  Here I cut the top off the tomato

which simultaneously gets rid of the 'stem' and gives me a surface to rest the tomato on.  Now slicing it into strips is easy!

The same feat is achieved with corn by breaking it in half so you don't have to balance it on point or stem.

Since I want the cantaloupe flavor to be noticeable in the dressing I switch from balsamic vinegar (which brings its own body and sweetness to the dish) for a red wine vinegar.  This vinegar is a bit more sour so we can get away with using a little less but more importantly it does not have a HUGE unique flavor that will fight with the fruit.  Chances are I could do it with balsamic but it turn the cantaloupe into an undertone.  I cut the seeds and the skin from the flesh of the cantaloupe and dice it finely until it is almost a mash.

This mash is added to the garlic/olive oil/ coconut oil  portion of the salad dressing.  I grind some pepper in and add a pinch of salt (yes I made it to the store).  Red wine vinegar goes in and we use a fork to whisk it up putting a little extra oomph in to try and mash up the melon more.  I made way too much salad dressing!  I mean just look at that. . .the acid is way out of proportion to the fat!  Well not really. . .the melon naturally sinks into the acid layer and makes it look bigger, so either get the ratio to your liking before adding melon or actually measure it out (which I dont suggest, you want to develop a feel for the tastes you like without measuring).

Well after a few bites my fears were assuaged.  The melon offers a soft sweetness and a delicate flavor which I love! My big concern was the texture but it really was similar to having chunks of avocado in a salad and felt normal to me.  really this reminds me of the character of a salad.  Most of the cookign we do blends flavors into one dish one network of tastes but a salad. . . a salad is really separate flavors that are brought together with a  dressing.  There are chunks of bell pepper and onion and corn and lettuce and when you eat them you know each one.  Each flavor could stand alone but on top of that one thing is the dressing which transmits the flavors so your bite of tomato, which tastes like tomato, has a hint of onion and cantaloupe and garlic.  this makes it so when you get that bite of cantaloupe with a  hint of tomato onion and garlic it does not seem out of place but fits in the musical collection of notes that make up your salads composition

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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 :)

Strawberries Smoothed

 No joke it is summer.  The weather pushes into the 90's (that is 32-37 C for you out side of the US) on a regular basis and I cannot help but make like a lizard and lay in the sun. . . I just prefer a comfy chair or blanket in place of a hot rock.  The other way I win over your typical reptile is I can have a smoothie while I bask in the glory of our day time star.

I get these strawberries fresh from the farm and get the tops taken off so I can freeze them. . . of course (in case you didn't know) I am a science geek and I happen to have access to liquid nitrogen.  

This chilly liquid sits at a cool 77K (-196 C or -320 F) and while it does not freeze something 'on contact' as popular television would have you believe it does freeze the strawberries so fast that the ice crystals have no time to form and the cell walls of the strawberries stay intact through the freezing process.  This means when you thaw them they are almost as good as fresh picked (but we all know nothing is really as good as fresh picked). In terms of a smoothie this also means that less ice is trapped in the straw berries and you get a smoother smoothie. 

the vapor around the container is condensing water

that is LN2 boiling around the berries

so cold they crack

ready to transport!

To actually make the smoothie take your frozen strawberries (how ever they are frozen) and combine about 1C of the frozen darlings with 1C of almond milk (if you are sassy you can make your own almond milk so it is a raw treat).  Add more almond milk or a bit of water to get the consistency you like; depending on how much you put in you can get it anywhere from a nice sorbet to something more like a drink.  I use a few mint leaves a quarter of a lemon and a table spoon of agave to balance out the sweetness without detracting from a bit of a tart hit when you first sip with a cool mint flavor lingering after the berries are in your belly.  a bit of vanilla extract (or raw vanilla bean) goes a long way to balance out the flavors and make this healthful drink seem a bit like a desert!  

I have had one or three of these in the last week and I am eager to share! so come do some porch sitting with me we can yell at the other coop across the street! 

Lunch time, yeah!

The last two weeks have been BUSY!  it may be hard to believe but I dont think I have cooked a full dinner in 2 weeks!  Egads!  yet still I crank out some tasty and quick lunches.  Above you see the toasted sesame asparagus in a balsamic reduction with a side of chipotle zucchini and roasted fennel bulb.  The salad is a Dino/Red Russian kale mix with sunflower seeds and grated carrots.  The strawberries on top are just because but made an excellent cap to the meal.

Triple Carrot! 

Snack Time! Fruit Salad

I didn't grow up with my dad around much but one thing I remember very clearly (which was reaffirmed not that long ago) was fruit salad.  My dad thought that fruit salad was the perfect way to jump start a day, not heavy enough to slow you down, easy to digest, pack full of nutrients and energy (sugar).  I don't have a fruit salad every day but on Saturdays when the farmers market is running it just makes sense and it is a perfect afternoon snack!  

Now saying I am giving you a recipe for fruit salad is kinda like saying 'hey here is a recipe for soup'  in that there are a lot of different ways to make soups and there are a lot of different ways to make fruit salad.  This is a late winter California fruit salad using locally grown walnuts and almonds, kiwis and apples I bought at the farmers market, an orange off the tree in my yard and, an avocado from the store for extra fat and creamy goodness.  As a topping i use shredded coconut, sesame seeds, golden flax seeds and sunflower seeds.

1 medium fuji apple (but any crisp apple will do, pink lady's are good)
2 ripe kiwis
1 orange
1 medium avocado
1/2 C almonds sliced
1/2 C walnuts diced
1/4 C sunflower seeds
2 Tbs sesame seeds
1 Tbs shredded coconut
2 tsp flax seed
1 Tbs agave nectar (optional)

The recipe is really as simple as cutting everything up and mixing it together but while we got all of this food lets pay some attention.  The mix of colors is good with soft red and orange with a splash of green, what is more in our control is the texture and shape.  Oranges naturally come out as slices but the apple is easily diced into large chunks (acting as our base) .. . I could have done more with the avocado but it is a bit messy so I just cubed it.  Kiwis are where we get to have a bit more fun, we can cut it into rounds, half rounds, cubes, wedges or, even  match sticks.  Honestly I was just hungry and went for a uniform cubed texture.  Now the Kiwi skin is pack of nutrients (so I am told) and should be left on but I am just not that in love with it and compromise but removing about half of it.  

The nuts and seeds and topping get tossed in with the agave nectar (which is again mostly for the texture and a habit from my dads fruit salads which always included a drizzle of honey).  I like to again pay attention to the textures from the topping.  Sometimes I am totally against the addition of shredded coconut just because it does have a big impact on the sensation of eating, but today I was in the mood.  I always love sesame seeds and flax seed, whole and raw.

I know if you do not grind the flax you do not get all of the nutrients and if you do not chew well will get none of the nutrients so chew well and enjoy the little pop of the occasional flax seed  as you do.  I slice the almonds and dice the walnuts extra fine, until they are more like walnut meal which will soak up the fruit juice and agave to make a sauce, a delicious fruity nutty sauce. Toss it all together with the sunflower seeds, adding more of what ever you like or leaving out a bit of what you don't like.

This fruit salad has it all: sugar, protein, fat, delicious flavor, awesome texture and great color!  When I went to take the above picture I kicked myself a bit. . .see that sprig of mint in the back, well I forgot to put mint in my salad! it just adds a little zap of freshness that leaves your pallet feeling clean.  I diced some up quick and tossed it i my second helping, this particular mint, growing in our front yard, is chocolate mint so it also has a nice earthyness to it that is cool and refreshing.