(Mostly) Vegan Megapost

Phew, it's been a whirlwind start to Autumn around here. This is the time of year that family birthdays kick in, and once October lands the school events start hitting. Can you tell I'm feeling slightly bruised? Only a little of this fall's bounty was bruised- most of it has been perfect and delicious. Pumpkins have been robbed of seeds and are queued up for carving, tomatoes melted into amazing sauces, and herbs have added just the right kick to savory dishes and provided a lovely bouquet to the air around the house.

Abbey started the season off with a traditional carrot cake and cream cheese frosting for her mom's birthday, which was decadent and delicious. The cake itself was vegan, consisting of oil, spices, flour, carrots and sugar. No eggs or dairy. Though Abbey made a traditional cream cheese frosting for her mom to enjoy, I'm sure a tasty frosting could be made with Earth Balance and Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese. Next up was my mom's birthday. That day we had a blackberry cake (it had buttermilk, but still amazing) and two appetizers. The first was crostini topped with pesto and fresh tomatoes. The pesto was not vegan- there was a small amount of parmesan- but again, it easily could have been, either omit the cheese entirely or substitute a combination of almond meal and nutritional yeast. Although I've made quite a few pestos with no cheese and they were all fine.

Next, we had veggie meatballs in sweet and sour sauce. I modified the traditional recipe found over at About.com's Chinese Cooking pages, substituting pineapple juice for the water. after heating the sauce and letting it thicken, I tossed in thin slices of baby carrots, diced onion and green pepper, and some nice off-the shelf veggie meatballs from Veggie Patch. I poured that into a crock pot a little in advance so the vegetables would cook a bit.

Most of our weekday meals this week have been noteworthy. Abbey has made creamy soups with white beans before, and we got to enjoy one this week made with spinach and nutritional yeast. that's a piece of ciabatta doused with olive oil parked in there. We cooked the beans in a heavy dutch oven to the point that they were falling apart; all we had to do was stir and they instantly made a creamy base. She tossed in a thawed chunk of spinach and it was practically done.

Here's the third dish we made with pesto this last week- a pasta salad (high fiber Piccolini penne from Barilla) composed of cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, vegenaise and a drizzle of olive oil. Abbey topped it with shreds of basil, salt and pepper.

Many years back, Abbey and I had a favorite Chinese spot near the campus where we worked. They had some pretty good dishes, but the one the towered above was their rendition of Lo Han Jai. Also known as Buddha's Delight, it's a savory vegetarian combination of Chinese vegetables such as lotus root, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and cloud ears; bean thread; tofu and soy sausage of some sort. It's a like a festival of healthy things in a bowl; traditionally eaten on Chinese New Year's, presumably as a sort of toast to the diner's health. Hankering for that flavor, Abbey found a recipe which we adapted according to available ingredients. We baked cubes of tofu, then stir fried snow peas, sliced baby bellas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, napa cabbage, bean thread, and added a simple sauce of soy sauce and vegetable broth (Imagine's Organic No-Chicken Broth was delicious for this purpose). It was fantastic.

Finally, Abbey came to the rescue for lunch the other day- I was trying to squeeze physical therapy and lunch into one hour; if it weren't for Abbey, I would have gone back to work hungry. She took some locally grown tomatoes and made a Spaghetti Pomodoro with them. The pasta was Racconto whole wheat spaghetti, the sauce consisting of tomatoes, whole black olives and olive oil. Nothing else was needed or desired.

I guess that's it for now! At least it is according to my camera. Abbey just whipped up an amazingly healthy granola that might be popping up here pretty soon as it has an impressive list of healthy ingredients, including buckwheat groats, flax, oats, pumpkin seeds and cashews.

Lentil salad

Renewing our effort to live a healthier lifestyle, we are trying to take some of the emphasis off food.  Still, you gotta eat.  Today for lunch, we boiled up about a cup of lentils, threw them together with Roma tomatoes from our garden, green onions, parsley, salt, pepper, mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil.  This is a terrific way to enjoy your lentils in the summer.  They were tender but not mushy.  They were filling, but not heavy.  And preparation couldn't be simpler.

Two super quick lunches

We so often struggle to stick with our lunch plans, mostly because it's so hard to throw something together in our alotted hour.  Sandwiches, soups, and salads are the typical format for lunch at home--and this format serves us well for the most part.  Sandwiches, like the above turkey bacon BLT, are usually quick to assemble.  Michael layered Swiss cheese onto a few slices of Ancient Grains bread from Columbia's Uprise bakery, and stuck them under the broiler for a couple minutes.  He sauteed some turkey bacon in our cast iron pan, drained it, and assembled the sandwich with some sliced tomatoes and bib lettuce.  It was fab--and maybe just a teensy bit lower in fat and carbs than the original BLT.

The pinto bean soup above came together in record time.  I sauteed half a diced yellow onion in broth (we'd just run out of olive oil), added a 15 oz can of pintos, 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth, a few tablespoons of salsa verde, some garlic powder (yes, I cheat sometimes), a couple tablespoons of cumin, salt, pepper and a few squeezes of fresh lime juice into the simmering pot.  If you like a little kick to your quasi-Mexican food, add a pinch of cayenne.  I would say, from start to finish, this soup took about 20 minutes. Not bad at all.  Michael and I loved it.  I garnished mine with a little cilantro.  He packed some more for his afternoon snack, 'cuz the boy loves him some beans.

Quinoa: the other other ancient grain

Finally! I've sold Michael on quinoa.  I never thought he would come around, but he's actually been looking forward to leftovers of this dish.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is a tasty ancient grain with a full complement of amino acids which makes it a complete protein (perfect for vegetarians), but there, I just did.

Pictured here, our simple evening meal of black bean and tomato quinoa from Serious Eats.  This particular recipe is built upon familiar Latin American flavors like lime, cilantro, black beans, and tomatoes--ideal when you consider that quinoa originated in South America.  If anyone finds themselves trying this recipe, there will be a point where you agonize over how to strain the water off the tiny grains after the initial boiling in salted water.  Don't panic.  Just drain MOST of the water off over the finest sieve you own, but don't dump it all out of the pan into the sieve.  Leave a little bit of water in, loosely fit the lid onto the pan and turn the heat as low as possible, allowing the quinoa to absorb the water (similar to rice) for another 10 minutes.  Follow the rest of the instructions as written after that point.  Quinoa is an extremely unfussy grain and it's such a hearty food that it makes an ideal one dish simple supper.

More fun with Greek food

Salads- done right, it's hard to argue with the appropriateness of a salad for the main course of a meal if you are trying to be healthy. Not only so most salads feature prominent vegetables (at least those conceived since the sixties), but also you will absorb fewer calories. Unfortunately you also absorb fewer nutrients, so it's good to use nutrient-dense greens like spinach and romaine lettuce. Actually the salad below uses iceberg, but that's all I had on hand.



When A suggested "greek salad" for lunch, I was gung-ho because Greek cuisine has been of special interest to me lately. I decided to compensate for a lack of a good olive in the house by making it more like a farmer's salad; the balance more on the chunky vegegetables and less on the lettuce. Greek farmer's salad minimally consists of sliced tomatoes, bell peppers and onions in an oregano-y vinaigrette (sometimes with marinated green beans and hard-boiled eggs) and feta. If it contained pieces of flat bread, we'd be talking about the Lebanese treat known as Fattoush. For dressing I wanted to try something other than my usual lemon and olive oil vinagrette with oregano, something with some added dimension, perhaps a bit more authentic. I loved the idea of whizzing green peppers in the dressing as detailed on the wonderful Kopiaste blog. (I actually found this recipe in its blogspot incarnation.) It was well worth the effort as you can see. I decorated with pieces of toasted organic french bread (LaBrea, store-bought, nonfat, no extra junk added). In retrospect I think I forgot to add onions, but it was tasty and filling.

It would be a drag if the old Kopiaste blog disappeared one day and the dressing recipe along with it. I made it exactly as specified:

Greek Salad Dressing


Ingredients

* ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 3- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1 clove of garlic
* Bell peppers, fresh or frozen (red, yellow, orange) about 2 – 3 spoonfuls (I used frozen)
* 1 piece of feta cheese 4 x 4 x 3 cm
* ½ teaspoon salt
* ½ teaspoon oregano
* Black pepper, to taste

Directions

Place in a food processor and puree all ingredients. Taste and adjust flavour according to your taste.