hot for food

A whole lot of non-food related stuff has been going on lately and I haven’t been able to blog for a while. Mainly, I started a full time job. Which is wonderful, but it means I’ve had to cut back on my leisurely cooking time. I’m all go-go-go now. At least until I adjust to this new lifestyle and figure out a balance. The whole reason I started this blog was mainly out of boredom. I was a freelancer for a couple of years. I did things on my own terms, when I wanted. And I somehow found a joyous outlet in cooking, taking photos of what I cooked and then blabbing about it to you, in my vast amounts of spare time. There was a time when I was making something inventive 3 times a day! However, everything I’ve eaten in the past 3-ish weeks has mainly been done in haste. However, this post is to show you how one vegan can still be healthy in hurry.

Luckily purchasing a Vitamix blender with my new found income has made it awesomely easy to get my fruit and veg intake in a jiffy. I’ve heard this machine is life changing, and now I know. It’s really quite incredible that it can whiz up a whole apple, 2 carrots, a 1/2 cup of berries, spinach, fresh ginger, and a shot of pure pom juice in the time it takes to sneeze. Or how about a sweet re-hydrating protein smoothie with raw almonds, rice milk, dates, banana, and coconut water.

I can also whiz up raw pesto cream in the Vitamix and store it in the fridge for the week to use as  a veggie dip, or as a tangy base for a pita pizza. I am slightly addicted to this at the moment. As a vegan I’ve missed pizza, but this is a million times better than anything I ate in my past life with cheese. The pesto is super easy: 1 cup raw sunflower seeds and almonds combined, 1/2 cup olive or sunflower oil, 2 cloves garlic, juice of one lemon, lots of basil, sea salt. I add water to make more and make it smoother, but you can also get a really dark green, chunkier pesto dip without water and run it through a food processor.

My comforting go-to is always brown rice pasta.  This is a Spicy Kung Pao Tofu dish I whipped up by just stir frying veggies and tofu and tossing with the noodles in a sauce of natural peanut butter, chilli garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, lime juice, brown rice vinegar, sunflower oil, and freshly grated ginger.

And I always have a pile of brown rice made up in the fridge so I can make stir fry and pair it with other things. If you bake up these acorn squash – I lightly coated in melted Earth Balance and a bit of maple syrup at 400 F – in advance you can stuff them with all kinds of things. In this case, it’s a simple and quick rice dish I did in a cast iron pan and just added cranberries, corn, walnuts, red pepper, and kale. I added some tahini for creaminess and a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg which gave it the perfect flavor to go with the squash.  I made this up on the spot and it’s a keeper! Also the seeds of the acorn squash were SO delish lightly seasoned and baked. I was going to put them in with the rice mixture, which would have been tasty, but I ate them all before everything was complete!

So if you want to keep eating right in more hectic times, it just takes a little bit of pre-planning and time to make sauces, grains etc.  in advance. If there’s good stuff in front of you when you open the fridge, you’ll be less compelled to resort to packaged foods. And seriously, looking at these pictures don’t you want to put in that extra effort

I made my first vegan burger this weekend. I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately…eating the SAME things over and over again and not really wanting to cook. But cooking for friends is always the best way to get your imagination going again. I made dinner for my friend Dee last night. She’s g-free and I’m vegan, so I have to get savvy if I’m going to cook for the two of us! I’m not saying veggie burgers are the most inventive things to make, but they are versatile and you can essentially put whatever you want in them. These are lentil walnut patties. They turned out amazing… probably because I didn’t follow a recipe! You’ll notice the burger is actually used as the “bun” allowing for a plethora of filling ideas. I stole this GENIUS idea from 101cookbooks.com. Man, I so wish I thought of this myself. I mean I could of. Isn’t it great!

I’ll tell you what’s in these burgers, but I do not know the amounts. Geez, how would I ever make a recipe book? I need an archivist or a scientist or something to keep track of me while I cook.

Ingredients for the burger patty/bun:
Green lentils, toasted walnuts, carrots, green onion, nutritional yeast, cilantro, parsley, cumin, paprika.

I cooked the lentils in veggie broth, boiled and drained the carrots, toasted the walnuts, and whizzed everything together in a food processor. I ended up with the exact consistency I needed. Not too soft and mushy and not too dry and hard. I made the patties into a thick enough size, thinking I would pan fry them and then slice them in half to use them as the bun. But after a trial run of that, I decided it was better to slice the patty in half first then pan fry either side. You could also just make thinner patties first. You can make the patties in advance and refrigerate them until you’re ready to cook and assemble them. So the possibilities of what to put inside these babies are endless! I did homemade cashew pesto cream, caramelized onion, a tomato slice, avocado, and baby spinach.

After devouring 2 mini burgers each and a pile of yam fries, Dee treated me to a piano serenade of Take Five by Dave Brubeck. Best ever! And we ate ourselves into chocolate chip peanut butter cookie comas.

My chef friend Denise Blinn has been wanting me to try her Krispy Kale Tofu recipe for months. She’s not a vegan, but includes this dish and other options as part of her Meals on Heels lunch delivery service. I was supposed to eat a batch that she made herself, but instead she sent me the recipe… and I tried it right away! Of course, I always have these ingredients in my kitchen at any given time so it’s the perfect thing to whip up and make large batches of for easy leftovers. Surprisingly, the kale stays crisp after day one. My only addition to the original recipe is chopped apples.

Krispy Kale Tofu

Ingredients
1 cup short-grain brown rice or basmati
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 lb kale chopped (ribs removed)
1 gala apple, chopped into cubes
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 lb extra-firm tofu, cut into 1/4″ cubes
sea salt

Preheat oven to 350° and place shelves in upper and lower thirds of oven. Prepare Brown Rice. Whisk together olive oil, sesame oil and soy sauce.  Reserve 1/3 of the dressing, then combine remaining with kale, coconut and tofu.  Toss well, then spread in a single layer on 2 sheet pans. Bake until crispy, about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to cook evenly on all sides. Remove from oven and toss mixture with remaining dressing and the cooked rice.  Season with salt and serve warm.

This recipe is a winner. I almost ate all of it in one day, which is possible sans rice! If you live in Toronto’s downtown core and either don’t bring your lunch to work, fail to eat a nutritious lunch, or just want a nice change check out Meals on Heels… it’s a steal of a deal!

Who doesn’t like PB Cookies? If you don’t, you’re insane! Or allergic to peanuts, I guess. That would be a shame. Luckily I have not developed a peanut allergy. I LOVE peanut butter. The REAL kind… just peanuts. If you eat that other crap you will probably die.

I was inspired to bake with brown rice flour and very few ingredients after discovering some delicious g-free vegan treats at Hibiscus in Kensington. If you have not been here you MUST go! It’s amazing. They serve homemade salads, soups, crepes, ice cream, baked squares and cookies… and it’s ALL gluten free and vegan. All of it! They don’t have a website, so here’s their yelp page (my review is also posted!).

Anyway, I made my first batch of g-free, vegan PB & Chocolate Chip Cookies with only six ingredients. They are delectable! You saw I used brown rice flour to make crepes recently, and now with these cookies turning out perfectly soft and tasty, brown rice flour is my new best friend.

G-free, Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups natural peanut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup non-dairy, g-free chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl combine peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Add flour and sea salt and mix until combined. Then fold in chocolate chips. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350 F for approx. 11-13 mins depending on cookie size. Makes 1 dozen large cookies or 2 dozen small cookies.

Now, you definitely need a tall glass of “milk” to accompany these babies. I have my favorite soy or almond beverage on hand at all times, but I finally worked up the courage to try rice milk again. I’ve been skeptical of rice milk because the one’s I have tried have all been tasteless, watery, and gross. But YÜ basmati rice beverage is definitely where it’s at.

So if you’re sick of getting bogged down by too much refined flour or wheat, whip up a batch of these cookies next time or go check out the goods at Hibiscus. Your tummy will thank you for it!

I’ve professed my love for quinoa before… it’s my fave! This time around I tried black quinoa. I have made the white and red quinoa before and there’s a huge difference in texture between them. I prefer the white, actually. It has a softer, fluffier feel and I find it absorbs the cooking liquid much better and faster. But I thought black quinoa would just look better in this recipe from Vegetarian Times for Gingery Quinoa Salad with Apples, Peas, and Coconut… and it does! But I would make it again with white for purposes of more pleasurable eating. The red and black quinoa’s are much chewier and make my jaw hurt after a few bites!

This is a great recipe and it happened to be one of those rare moments where I don’t modify anything! There’s a nice creaminess to it being cooked in 100% carrot juice and I like the hint of coconut flavor combined with the sweet peas and apples. If you love quinoa, give it a whirl!

I attempted to make crepes for the first time in my life. What a crappy experience. Well crappy is a little harsh, but I definitely don’t have a natural talent for making crepes. I actually made 2 whole crepes out of an attempt at probably close to 15 or 16 times. These are the only 2, yet beautiful and tasty results.

Vegan Asparagus Mushroom Brown Rice Crepe with Hollandaise

Vegan PB & Apple Cinnamon Buckwheat Crepe with Maple Syrup

The recipes for the crepe batter, asparagus, and vegan hollandaise sauce are from VeganYumYum. I made some modifications, trying brown rice flour and buckwheat flour for the crepe batter. Which also make these g-free as well as vegan! These 2 lonely crepes worked out perfectly and tasted amazing. You can’t even imagine how incredibly close the vegan hollandaise sauce is to the real thing; at least from what I can remember of eating eggs benedict! The buckwheat flour crepe is quite a full bodied flavor – perhaps too nutty for some. You could use only half buckwheat flour with another type. But I thought the flavor of buckwheat was great, especially paired with peanut butter, apples, cinnamon and maple syrup.

The whole crepe creation problem is a combo of having an old non-stick pan, burners that are very sensitive and difficult to regulate temperature on, and the fact that I’ve never done it before. While I even followed the very helpful video tutorial Lolo posted, I think that I kept fiddling with the pan temperature too much. Ultimately, this recipe requires patience… hmph. I’m just glad I didn’t attempt it with a room full of starving brunchers!

Ever since I’ve turned vegan you know I’ve been trying to experiment with versions of mac & cheese. I tried one recipe from VeganYumYum and another from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. One was tofu based and the other blended from raw cashews. They were pretty good… at the time. But now I’ve perfected the recipe and I feel this tastes much better. It’s milder in flavor and quicker to make… which is the whole point of mac & cheese, isn’t it? I feel as though this is a perfect vegan mimic of my fave mac & cheese (made from real cheese) that I USED to eat at The Drake. If you’re not vegan, you must try their dish! If you are vegan, you must try my Easy Pea-sy Mac & Cheeze.

Ingredients:
1 package Rotini noodles
1 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp each of lemon juice, olive oil, white miso, nutritional yeast, tamari
finely chopped cilantro
1 clove of garlic, minced
black pepper

In a dish mix together the ingredients for the sauce including tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, white miso, nutritional yeast, tamari, cilantro and garlic. Rinse peas under water to defrost. Once pasta is cooked and drained, add in your peas and half the sauce. Mix to coat noodles. You can add more sauce as you like, but you’ll probably find you have extra.

I prefer the texture of rotini noodles (and of course I used brown rice pasta) because macaroni tends to feel worm-ish and slimy. The measurements I outlined make more than enough for 4 servings of pasta. If you want to make more you can just double the recipe. I had left over sauce and I find it also makes a great dip for crackers or veggies!

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!