January 2013

1

Butternut Squash Balls with Yogurt Sauce

Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013

adapted from Love and Lemons

Ingredients
1 butternut squash,  halved and roasted (makes 1.5-2 cups mashed squash)
1 cup garbanzo bean flour
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp. Olive oil
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
pinh of cayenne pepper
splash of maple syrup or agave
salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped herbs (I used sage and rosemary)
1 cup bread crumbs

yogurt sauce
1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt
juice and zest of 1 lime
splash of olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Cut butternut squash in half, rub with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a 400F oven cut side up until tender (about 40 minutes). Once cool, mash with a fork or a potato masher. Place mash in a large bowl and add garbanzo bean flour, cumin, garlic, olive oil, paprika, cayenne, maple syrup, salt and pepper and half the chopped herbs.

Lower oven temperature to 350F

On a large plate mix bread crumbs with remaining herbs. Spoon a rounded tablespoon of mash onto the bread crumbs and toss to coat. The mash is quite sticky so it helps to throw bread crumbs over the ball coating it before you begin to shape it using your hands.

Place balls on a parchment paper lined baking pan and bake at 350F for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, combine all of the ingredients for the yogurt sauce. Once the balls have finished baking, drizzle them with yogurt sauce and a splash of balsamic vinaigrette.


Et voila!


0

Adventures in Juicing

Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013

I'm a trend follower. There. I said it. Curiosity gets the best of me and I'm hooked. The first was transitioning to a grains and greens vegan based diet after watching the documentary Forks Over Knives which has totally transformed the way we think about food and how we eat it, how we exercise, and improving our health overall (100lbs. total combined between the two of us and counting). After hitting the proverbial wall of weight I wanted to shock my system with a juice cleanse for a few days. All the rage, I know. I don't pretend to know how amazing it is for your health or if it's just mumbo jumbo. Followers attest to its ability to detox the system by improving digestion, eliminating toxins, and reducing anxiety so I'm hoping to see some of those benefits from doing this. B is on board and attempting more ambitious concoctions that involve juicing onions and blending tofu but I'm sticking with straight juice. 
The attempt is to go three days of juicing. 
Initial cost of vegetables ($70.00)
Total time involved in juicing all the vegetables using a Juiceman Jr. (best $7.00 thrift store find ever!): 4 Hours
B sets about chopping our veggies
Final stash of juice including [Apple, Red Cabbage, Beet, Kale, Spinach, Orange, Lemon, Strawberry, Celery, Broccoli, Tomato, Ginger, Lime, Cucumber, Carrot]

I'll keep you posted on some good juice recipes that I come up with as the days go on. 

0

Granola Crusted Pancakes

Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2013


Recipe from Everything Is Homemade
Ingredients
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flax meal, 2 tbsp water)
1 cup flour
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp milk of any kind
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. oil
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 banana, thinly sliced
1 cup granola

Directions
Mix the flax meal with water and set aside. In a large bowl mix flour, brown sugar and salt. Add oil, milk, and flax egg to the flour mixture and combine. 

Meanwhile, heat a skillet over medium heat. Pour 1/2 cup of the pancake mixture onto the skillet. Gently press a few slices of banana on the top of the batter and add a generous sprinkling of granola. Once the edges of the pancake look dry and the top of the pancake is good and bubbly flip it! Cook the granola side for a fraction of the time it took to cook the bottom side otherwise you'll be left with burnt bananas and granola (no good!). 

Now, just drench in pure maple syrup and devour. 
These pancakes are delicious and even better, they're vegan (if you used nut milk like I did!)

Bon Apetit!

 

0

Waiting for summer and a to die for sandwich

Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2013

This morning the agricultural fields looked like they had been drenched in a thick blanket of snow but it was just an illusion for what was a dense layer of fog. The scene itself was ghostlike and beautiful. That's been the norm the last week or so. The cold frost has made public transportation commuting quite miserable and even bundling up in several layers leaves me consistently shivering wishing to be buried under warm covers and snuggled in bed. I don't think I can call myself a true Canadian, I would never survive the snow! 

This frigid weather has me dreaming about the warmer months. I have delegated a good portion of my kitchen counter to starting the summer crops from seed. I jury rigged the light system and it's working pretty well keeping the seedlings from getting too leggy and falling over.

I have several varieties of mysterious peppers, a few heirloom cherry tomatoes and other varieties of tomatoes, at least 5 varieties of eggplants of all different colors and shapes, beets and some red okra. I'm gingerly seeing them through to fruition (finger's crossed).


During the summer months when the tomatoes, eggplants, basil and eggs are flowing I usually craft a mean pesto drenched, fried eggplant, tomato tapenade sandwich (open faced or closed) and throw an over easy egg on there for protein intake sake and to use up the massive amounts of eggs my chickens lay during the summer. In the winter months I sometimes get a craving for those days of bountiful tomatoes and eggplants and wish the store bought tomatoes didn't taste like crap so I could recreate. 

The other night I recreated a version of this sandwich and there are no words to describe how amazing it tasted. Here's the recipe: 

Rosemary Bread
adapted from Food.com

1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp rosemary, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil

Directions: 
Mix yeast, sugar and water in a bowl or in stand mixer and let stand for 5 minutes or until it's good and bubbly. 
Mix in olive oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Add 1 Tbsp. rosemary and knead for 10 minutes by hand or with a bread hook in the stand mixer. Add more flour if necessary.
Oil a bowl, add the kneaded dough and cover with a towel. Let it rise until it has doubled in size. Punch the dough down and divide in half. 
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and form the two halves into elongated loaves on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the remaining rosemary over the loaves and gently press into the dough. 
Let the loaves rise again for about 45 minutes. 
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F
Bake 15-20 minutes

To Die For Sandwich 
Note: There are quite a few ingredients that go into this sandwich so it's not for the "quick I need to eat now" venture. It takes some time to prepare. 

Part 1: Caramelized Onions
1 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
Heat olive oil over medium-low heat, add onions and cook stirring frequently until they begin to turn brown.

Part 2: Fried Eggplant
Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat
Slice eggplant into 1/2 inch rounds. Fry eggplant in oil for 2-3 minutes each side. 

Part 3: Spinach Pesto
In a food processor blend the following:
2 cups spinach leaves
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup walnuts
pinch of salt     
drizzle olive oil into food processor just until the pesto becomes creamy in texture. 

Part 4: Sundried Tomatoes
** I rehydrated some tomatoes I had dried in a dehydrator using boiling water and then towel dried them but any store bought jar of sundried tomatoes would work.

Part 5: Fried Egg, over easy


To Assemble: 
Cut the loaves in half so that they form two sandwich halves. Generously douse each side in spinach pesto. Throw a few slices of fried eggplant and a few sundried tomatoes on the next layer, top it off with the caramelized onions and fried egg. Then, I drizzled it all with some balsamic vinaigrette and Tapatio hot sauce, put the lid on the thing and called it a day! 



 

       

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Winter Squash Black Bean Patties with Cheesy Kale Chips

Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2013


Adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

Black Bean Patties

2 cloves garlic
3 scallions white and green parts, chopped
1/2 cup squash purée (pumpkin, kabocha, butternut will all work!)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
1/2 tsp. coriander powder
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
1 cup brown rice cooked and cooled
15 oz. can black beans, rinsed
2 Tbsp. flax meal
1/3 cup oat flour
Olive oil for cooking

Directions:

Make ahead
  • Cook 1 cup of rice according to package directions in a rice cooker or on the stovetop.
  • Roast or steam your preferred winter squash. I used a kabocha squash left ovr from this recipe made earlier in the week. For the Kabocha, peel and de-seed and then steam for 15-20 min and mash with a fork. This recipe would be good with roasted butternut squash or a roasted carrot purée or if you have a can of pumpkin purée that'll work too. You'll need 1/2 cup of purée.
In a food processor combine garlic, scallions, squash, olive oil, cumin, coriander, cayenne, and salt. Add half of the beans and the rice and pulse a few times. You want to keep the chunky consistency from this point forward. Add the flax meal and oat flour to the food processor. I ground whole flax and oats using a coffee grinder to get a fine powder. Add the remaining beans and pulse a few times to combine. Form the bean mixture into patties about 1/2 inch thick. Heat oil in a shallow skillet or frying pan. Place the patties in the pan and fry about 2-3 minutes per side or until they are browned. 

Serve with a heaping mound of sliced avocado, a sprinkling of salt and pepper and some hot sauce if you like.

Cheesy Kale Chips 

1 bunch of kale
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes
Coarse sea salt

Directions:
De-stem kale, tear into bite size pieces and wash well with cold water. 
Drizzle 1 Tbsp. Olive oil over kale and toss to coast the leaves. Arrange on baking pan and sprinkle nutritional yeast over the kale. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 300F for about 10-15 minutes. Watch the kale as it bakes, there is nothing worse than undercooked or overcooked kale. 



0

Snack Attack

Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Rice Cakes with Avocado and Balsamic Vinaigrette


Hunger pangs are a killer. Transforming our food habits has been wonderful, but for a habitual snacker like me I find it challenging to find healthy alternatives to tide me over between meals. 

It was only recently that I discovered the powers of rice cakes and started to get creative in transforming them beyond their typical chalky stick-to-your-mouth blandness. 

To Make: 
2 unsalted rice cakes, slice 1/2 an avocado and distribute amongst the cakes, sprinkle salt and pepper over top and drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette. 

1

Exploring Niles

Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2013










B and I often find ourselves in the Fremont/Niles area and so this past weekend we decided to explore the Niles area a bit more. I am on a hunt for a working record player and read in the local bay area paper that the Niles mom and pop record shop "Needle to the Groove" was the place to check out. We walked down from the hills and along the main thoroughfare which is most widely recognized for being a hot spot for Charlie Chaplin silent films back in the day. Niles has character in quirky houses, unusual architecture and quite an admirable selection of craft beers in their corner supermarket. Drank coffee at Niles Cafe and then walked back along the railroad tracks and enjoyed a new-to-me brewsky on the balcony overlooking the Niles canyon and surrounding hillsides.

0

Savory Mushroom and Brussel Sprout Braided Pizza Loaf


Sometimes I have a craving for pizza, but instead of that greasy stringy cheese covered mess I found it is just as easy and equally rewarding to create a healthy vegan pizza with some random fridge ingredients. 

In this case, I wanted to use up some mushrooms and Brussels sprouts. 
Pizza Dough

Ingredients
1 package active dry yeast
1 tsp white sugar
1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450F
In a medium bowl dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy (10-15 minutes). Stir in flour, oil and salt and beat until smooth. Let rest another 5-10 minutes until it begins to puff up. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a 10 by 16 inch rectangle (roughly, you can adjust the size to fit your preference). 

Filling

Ingredients
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1lb. Brussels sprouts, thinly sliced to a shredded consistency
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. Tapatio hot sauce
2 Tbsp. fresh sage, chopped,
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
1/2 tsp. coriander powder
Salt and pepper to taste.


Directions:
In a medium sauce pan heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add mushrooms and brussel sprouts and cook until both are tender and slightly browned in color. Add garlic and sage and remove from heat. 


To assemble:
I find it's helpful to have your pizza dough already set on a lightly oiled baking sheet at this point so you don't have to do any moving later on. 
Pour the filling down the middle of your rectangular pizza dough.

Sprinkle cumin, coriander, salt and pepper over the top of the filling, dash Tapatio hot sauce over the whole thing. Go crazy here if you want. I love hot sauce so I tend to go overboard. 
Cut one inch strips along the long edges of the pizza dough. Leave about a 1 inch space between where the cut ends and where the filling begins. Then, starting at one end, alternate folding the strips over the filling creating a braided pattern. Seal the ends and any gaps you see by gently pressing the dough together with your fingers. 

Place in preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes. Slice loaf into 4 wide inch pieces and serve.