hot for food

I am surprised how many people still don’t know about quinoa! When I mention it aloud, people go… huh? Well, you need to know about it. It is an ancient whole grain, and is considered to be a complete protein. Technically, though it is a seed. But it replaces grains in recipes and cooks the same way. It is AMAZING! It’s cheap, versatile, and completely healthy for you. AND most importantly, it doesn’t hurt my gut! It is my favorite food. I vow to try more interesting recipes using this super ingredient. I even want to try baking with it.

I found this recipe linked from a Facebook post of fellow blogger Sweet On Veg. I cooked up a whole box of quinoa for this Quinoa Taco Salad and ate it all myself over the course of a few days.

Credit goes to Karina, the Gluten-Free Goddess. She is incredible. Lots of foodies know about this amazing site and I check back often, because she has a lot of gluten-free AND vegan recipes, including a lot of baked goods. Now I’m not 100% G-free, but I am experimenting with it. I think we could all stand to lighten up on the refined sugars, flours, and yeast. Check out Gluten-Free Goddess for some ideas and give this salad a try!

Ok, I was a bit premature to dismiss kale the other day. I learned a little bit more about the leafy greens on the internet and I’m loving them. I came across a recipe on Modern Hippie and the secret is sea salt! This Kale Avocado Salad was incredible. Natalia of Glowing Temple who posted the recipe also goes onto say, the more greens she eats the more her body craves them. Well, I’m not there yet, but I will give it a try!

The salad is also good stuffed in a whole wheat pita with other pairings like crispy tofu or homemade falafel (I’ll post that recipe next). Like this, it sort of reminds me of tabouleh. It’s a good way to get more greens, still eat healthy, but not get bored of eating ONLY salad all the time.

I also found a recipe for Kale Soup on The Hot Yam! blog site. Which means I was able to use up all that kale I had in the same cooking session! I was hoping to try Hot Yam for the first time too, but they’ve closed for the semester. This was more like a lentil soup, as the kale wasn’t really the feature ingredient, but it was still tasty and it’s a keeper!

Kale Soup

Ingredients:
2 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
6 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 red potatoes, diced into ½-inch cubes
1 cup green lentils
2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried sage
3 cups kale, chopped
salt and pepper

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes. Add carrots and celery, and saute for an additional 10 minutes. Add all ingredients except for kale, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chopped kale, salt, and pepper. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Am I weird if I want to stay at home and cook on my Saturday night? I don’t want to go out and drink at a bar with my friends and yell talk. And if I’m going to spend money on something to put in my mouth I would rather it be food and not alcohol. Tonight I made a yummy naturally sweet and raw snack (which I will post tomorrow). While those are refrigerating, I am prepping components for a vegan lasagna so that it’s all ready for tomorrow’s dinner, and I just tried Jennifer’s (Sweet On Veg) Blueberry Chocolate Frozen Treat. OK, this is the second time this girl has changed my life! The first time, if you recall, was with her Raw Chocolate Ice Cream. So my boyfriend is in heaven right now over it and I’m singing “yummy yummy I got love in my tummy”. I think it might have made us high… it’s not such a boring Saturday night after all!

I made an exciting new vegan recipe. First, a HUGE shout out to SusanV at FatFree Vegan Kitchen for her amazing creations… she is a huge inspiration and I’ve managed to feed all my cheesy cravings thanks to her re-inventions of classic meals. Her Eggplant Parmesan is exactly like the “real” thing. Now eggplant’s aren’t really my fave food, in fact they’re not really even on my radar. I think people assume they are a vegetarians staple – usually part of a grilled veggie medley – and while they might have health properties that I’m not aware of, in my experience they’ve just been more of a pain in the ass then they’re worth.

This was worth it though. Also the cheese sauce component of the recipe will become a staple for other things I make in future… like a vegan lasagna!

My only mod is with the Vegan Parmesan Cheese. To make a real good replicate takes no time at all. Just whirl raw cashews, nutritional yeast, and sea salt together in a food processor. Make lots so you can keep it stored in the fridge to use for any meal, like pasta, salad etc.

My recent post on Brekkie mentioned a first trial run at making vegan french toast. Some would think it’s an impossible feat, but it’s not! I figured out the tricks this time. I tried a different recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, just for curiosity sake. But this time  around I used denser bread and toasted it in the toaster slightly, before dipping it in the mixture, then pan frying it. I don’t really like soft french toast. It is called TOAST isn’t it?! I also made sure to use a non-stick pan. I guess without the use of eggs you don’t get quite the same crispy outside as what you might be used to, but the FatFree Vegan recipe adds a nice touch with the nutritional yeast,  and you could still combine this recipe with the one I tried in Brekkie using mashed banana for extra flavor.

And how much do you luuuuvvvv Maple Syrup! I wish I could drink it.

That’s right son! hot for food has 2 feature posts on food web communities. Looks like my Guacamole Salsa is making people happy and getting them into the summer spirit over at Food Network Canada’s Blog (thanks, Val). And my Carrot Cake Muffins are part of the FoodBuzz Top 9 today. Out of nearly 3300 posts on FoodBuzz people are buzzing about my luscious muffins. Radical!!

Wow, what a wonderful world the internet is. Thanks for supporting hot for food. Happy healthy eating!

Did you see my recent post about making a vegan mac & cheeze? OK, well I tried another recipe, just for fun. It’s from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. A blog I am frequenting now and highly recommend. The first recipe I tried was actually called a vegan alfredo sauce and while I originally disagreed, I take it back. This second version of mac & cheeze from FatFree Vegan Kitchen is more like real mac & cheese. It’s even yellow like KD… but WAAAAY better! It’s also a very smooth and creamy sauce. The first recipe from VeganYumYum had raw cashews in it that didn’t quite blend smooth in my meager blender. While it was still yummy and I’ll probably use that sauce again, I like how this one has no chunky bits. So definitely give it a whirl. It’s tasty and cheezy!

I seriously LOVE cake so much. Any kind, doesn’t matter. My last meal on earth would be a whole cake… all to myself. Anyway, I had so much fun making my first vegan birthday cake! It resulted in having extra cakes though, because I ended up trying different recipes. So I had even more fun using my extra cakes, concocting different icing and presentation ideas.

It was my bf’s birthday and all he wanted was a simple vanilla/white cake with chocolate icing. Looking online for vegan cake recipes I opted to try this one first at The Vegan Chef. I thought it turned out to be too heavy or dense. It has so much flour in it. And it was to puffy. Too much rise. I had to trim the tops to make them flatter, as I decided I was going to make a round 2 layered cake. It tasted good, but I was being extra picky. After some debate and anxiety I thought I should try a different recipe to get a lighter fluffier texture. I used a regular white cake recipe calling for butter, milk, and eggs, and just replaced those with Earth Balance, soy milk, and egg replacer powder. It was lighter, but it sunk in the middle. I don’t really know why it did that. And after searching online… no one else seems to know either. Some answers might be over beating the mixture, and get this, jumping around the oven? All very weird. But it still tasted good. I made an easy buttercream chocolate frosting by mixing powdered sugar, cocoa powder, earth balance, and soy milk.

See how lopsided it looks! The real fun and the following tasty photos were done using up the extra cake. What are these messy, stacked cakes like? Napoleons? I don’t know. There’s a fresh strawberry frosted one, and a peanut butter chocolate chip one. They were YUMMY!

Using fresh strawberry or raspberry puree is a good way to dye your icing (pink only) without using food coloring…plus it tastes better! I also had so much cake that I made some of these trifle-like cakes in wine glasses. They’re in the fridge waiting for a craving. I definitely have not found the perfect vegan vanilla cake recipe. There’s others out there. Some call for apple cider vinegar, which I guess reacts with the baking powder. I’m looking forward to more cake experiments in future!

Ok, I can get used to this vegan thing now that I’ve made and devoured a couple of delicious staples in life. Made into vegan friendly versions in the hot for food kitchen were chocolate ice cream and macaroni & cheese. Yes, you heard me right!

I can safely say I’ll never eat real ice cream again now that I’ve tasted this creation by SweetOnVeg. Jennifer, you are a genius! Go check out her recipe after you feast your eyes on my photo (although her photo is way prettier).

It’s ridiculously easy to make this, and it’s even perfect for people who eat raw. I saw this recipe a while ago, but it took me a while to figure out what I needed to buy… RAW CACAO powder. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s not the same as COCOA powder. I found Navitas Naturals at Whole Foods, so it’s definitely around and abundant – now that we all know what a superfood REAL, RAW chocolate is.

Next up, Mac & Cheese. I was never a fan of Kraft Dinner. Unless, of course I was drunk… come on, we all do it! But I love CHEESE, and I can say with 100% satisfaction this recipe is killer. Proof… my boyfriend, who would live on KD if he could, said it was so delicious and will definitely eat it again… and again, and again. So HA!

It’s from VeganYumYum, another new fave blog that I recently mentioned. It’s in Lauren’s new cookbook (that I also mentioned), but she was kind enough to post it online, for all to make! It’s amazing. She calls it alfredo, but after looking up a number of vegan mac & cheeze recipes, this seems pretty close. I used macaroni noodles so in my books, it’s mac & cheeze. Check out the recipe here. Again, the hot for food photo is not as pretty, or should I say “hot”, as the original.

I found another outstanding blog and more inspiration. This girl Lauren Ulm (we have the same name, and nickname!) was on The Martha Stewart Show, and she too is a self-taught cook and food blogger… so exciting! Ok so it’s called  VeganYumYum and everything is yum… yum. Man, she’s only 25 I think, and she has her own cookbook which I WANT! It’s called VeganYumYum: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-Free Recipes for Entertaining and Everyday. I’m sure she doesn’t need the plug from me, as she’s already totally popular, but for my few readers, check it out! A great post on her site is from a couple years ago, but this is really going to help me. It’s a post on food photography for bloggers. She’s also not a pro photographer. I might have to steal (I mean borrow) an idea or two… if only to improve my shots! Check out the link here.