Quick Vegan Tartar Sauce

Chewie, my yorkie, likes to play up the cuteness.

 

Vegan Tartar Sauce!

I just threw this together and it was delicious. Measurements are approximate as I didn't measure when I made it.

About 1 cup - Reduced Fat Vegenaise (vegan mayo)

About 2-3 tablespoons - Apple Cider Vinegar

3 Crunchy Kosher Dill Pickles, the mini ones about 3 inches long each (I used B&G brand, but I suppose any favorite pickle will work.)

About 2 tablespoons grated Horseradish

Put all ingredients in a mini food processor and pulse until combined. Voila!

 

Slowcooker / Crockpot Apple Butter!



 

Apple Butter is surprisingly easy to make! I was looking for something to do with all my CSA apples and came across this simple recipe for apple butter in a cookbook I found on a neighbor's stoop. heh. The cookbook is called Endangered Recipes: Too Good To Be Forgotten by Lari Robling and it features some classic American recipes.

 

Apple Butter Recipe:

5 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into 1 inch pieces (about 12 cups)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 - 2 teaspoons cardamom

1/2 cup apple cider

 

Put everything in crockpot for 4 hours on high, then scrape sides down and cook on low for about 10 hours more. Puree in crockpot with immersion blender. If it still needs to thicken cook an additional hour or two with lid ajar. Puree in blender afterward if you don't have an immersion blender. Voila!

Savory Amaranth Stuffed Peppers

Huzzah! I made amaranth! I'm pretty excited about this; I've been meaning to do this forever. This was pretty damn good. The marinade is from The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life by Melisser Elliott (the Brussels sprouts with crispy tempeh recipe in that book).   

Savory Amaranth Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:
1 cup dry amaranth
2 cups water
4 red bell peppers (tops cut off and deseeded)
1/4 cup raw pine nuts
5 sun dried tomatoes, rehydrated in hot water for 10 minutes and then cut into thin strips
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, cut into thin slices
olive oil to sauté onion
5 ounces raw baby spinach, wilted in about 1/2 inch boiling water in a saucepan

Marinade ingredients:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Method:
Combine all marinade ingredients and set aside. Next, set oven to 375F. Spray peppers with cooking oil or coat in oil. Roast peppers for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, bring two cups water to a boil in a sauce pan. Once the water is boiling, stir in the cup of dry amaranth, cover, and lower heat to a simmer. Leave amaranth simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Next, heat oil in a pan and sauté onion until it's caramelized. I threw in the minced garlic at the end of the onion sauté just to heat it and release the flavor. Once amaranth and pepper done, turn off heat and combine amaranth, drained wilted spinach, sundried tomatoes, onions, garlic, and marinade in the saucepan. Spoon mixture into peppers and serve. Serves 3 or 4.

Kitchen Tips ...

I made this combo of roasted eggplant, olives, tomato sauce, Italian spices, and a sautéed onion the other night to throw over some pasta. It was fab. Mmm.

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And now ... Some kitchen tips you might know and, then again, maybe not ... Just thought I'd share some of my faves.

♥ To freshen your kitchen sponge and disinfect it, throw it in the top rack of your dishwasher and run it through a cycle of dishes. Voila! Clean, disinfected sponge.

♥ To soothe a minor burn on your finger, smear a little Anbesol (made to soothe mouth sores) on it. Takes the sting right out.

♥ To steam things without them sticking to your steamer basket, cut out a round of parchment paper and make several folds in it. Take a single hole punch and punch holes in it. Unfold and lay in steamer. The holes you punched will allow the steam to come through.

♥ To open a jar easily, just slide a bottle opener tip under the top and let some air in by pulling out the side of the top slightly. The top will pop and it'll be easy to screw right off. No help from big biceps required. ;) [see pics below]

Raw Tomato Sauce

Raw Tomato Sauce

Our CSA also yielded some awesome organic tomatoes this week, so I threw together a sauce for dinner. It was so yummy! (I served it over some Trader Joe's vegan meatless balls (which certainly aren't raw, but they're also yummy. heh.)

Method:
Roughly chop tomatoes and throw in blender with a large handful of fresh basil. Blend until smooth. I made enough so that I had about 3/4 of a blender full when done. You could throw any other spices into the blender to process them to make this completely raw, but I sautéed a little minced garlic in olive oil in a saucepan and then added the tomato mixture to heat it a bit. I also threw in some red pepper flake, oregano, salt & pepper to taste. :)

Things I've made this week ... Mmmm

I made the Asian Noodles with Black Vinaigrette from Crazy Sexy Kitchen tonight. It's amazing! I love this cookbook! I made it for my husband and I to take for lunches for the next couple days. I also made it with organic kale and an organic red pepper from our CSA, a sautéed leek, and chickpeas since that's what I had on hand. I topped it with some raw sesame seeds, but I forgot to do that before I took the picture. ;p

We had an abundance of organic kale this week from our CSA (lucky us!), so I also made some tabbouleh with kale instead of parsley(pictured below). Yum!

Our CSA also got us an enormous yellow watermelon. What a difference an organic locally grown watermelon makes when it comes to taste!

More on Vegan Bagel Spreads ...

Ok. So, I tried the Cashew Cream Cheese recipe in Crazy Sexy Kitchen and it's a pretty damn good raw vegan soy free alternative to cream cheese. It beats the smashed avocado. I also made the Tofu Ricotta from Veganomicon which is a good one too. I'm thinking the Cashew Ricotta from Veganomicon will probably be the winner. I'll try that next week. ;)

Here are some pictures of delicious wraps I've had over the past week or so. The first one is a veggie wrap from Strokos in Washington Heights (St. Nicholas Ave at 166th St.) and the second is the Smoky Avocado wrap from Blossom du Jour (three locations in Manhattan). Blossom du Jour is a 100% vegan takeaway. They also deliver and cater events. It was so yummy that it'll be my new Friday afternoon lunch after my yoga class. ;)

Crazy Sexy Food ...

As a gift to myself for having moved toward better eating once again, I got Kris Carr's cookbook, Crazy Sexy Kitchen. I love it! I had already read Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet book and this was a nice addition. I already made the Save the Tuna Salad (raw vegan salad made with soaked raw sunflower seeds and almonds) and the Curried Nada Egg tofu salad. Both of these salads were delicious! I'm sure I'll make them regularly. yum.

Lemon-Herb Orzo

Lemon-Herb Orzo
Ingredients:
1 box orzo pasta
3 tablespoons vegan butter (such as earth balance)
1/3 cup each chopped fresh chives, dill, and parsley
zest of 1 lemon
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (or more to taste)
salt and pepper (to taste)
Method: Cook orzo according to package directions, drain, and toss in a large bowl with the remaining ingredients.

This was so yummy! I served it with some roasted carrots. Mmmmmmm ...

(Recipe adapted from one found in Food Network Magazine, July 2013.)

Chewie is enjoying his summer ...

 

Chewie, my extra adorable yorkie, has been making the most of summer.
Here he is enjoying Prospect Park and on beach patrol at the Jersey shore. ;)

Chewie is a healthy, happy, spoiled vegan doggie; he eats Natural Balance dog food, all sorts of veggies, and many great treats by Fruitables!

Going green ... and a Quick Roasted Red Pepper and Chickpea Salad ... yum!

 
 


So, I've been really sick this year and I credit that, in large part, to my eating a lot of dairy and some processed food again. After my latest bout with illness, I'm trying to be done with dairy again and eat much more clean. Since I was feeling miserable anyway, I managed to quit coffee while I was sick two weeks ago. I start the day with water or a fresh raw juice which makes a lot more sense! I'm sure my immune system is thanking me already.


I also quit dairy. My biggest weakness is a toasted bagel with cream cheese. Hey ... I'm raised in Jersey and I live in Brooklyn. This is, like, essential to life as, say, sunshine. So, I'm trying some alternatives. I don't like the Tofutti cream cheese style spread and so I tried the Daiya version. Sorry to say that the Daiya is not a tasty substitute in my opinion either. :(

So, I smeared some avocado on my bagel and that was better than any vegan cream cheese-like spread I've ever had. Hummus won't do the trick; it's got to be creamy. So, I think I'm going to try the tofu ricotta from Veganomicon next.


I also love provolone subs (a la the Jersey Shore style). This would be my last meal. Seriously. So, I tried the Daiya Provolone slices. I ordered a sub with no meat or cheese and then added the Daiya to it. No deal. Good try my friends at Daiya, but it can't really replace provolone for me. I put a few slices of avocado on the other half of my sub and that tasted pretty good. *sigh* ... but not as good as provolone. *sigh*

While I was at the Jersey shore for the weekend, I cooked up some yummy things ... Here are a few:

Roasted Red Pepper and Chickpea Salad with Parsley and Olives
Ingredients:
1 can chickpeas
1 jar roasted red peppers
1 bunch curly leaf Italian parsley
1 small can sliced black olives
1 shallot, diced
red wine vinegar and olive oil (I do half vinegar and half oil)
salt and pepper to taste
Method: combine all veggies in a bowl and drizzle with vinegar and oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
I served this with some couscous with toasted pine nuts and steamed kale as well as some roasted fennel, roasted eggplant, and a green salad.

Simple Vegan Banana Muffins

 

Ingredients:

• 3 very ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup oil or vegan margarine, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour (I used whole wheat.)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup nut milk (I use almond milk)

Method:

Preheat oven to 375F. Mash bananas with a fork in a large bowl until mushy and just a little lumpy. Stir sugar and oil into bananas. Mix all other dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to banana mixture. Add nut milk and stir just to combine. Fill 12 muffin cups with batter and bake for 20 mins. Enjoy!

Makes 12 small muffins. 

Approximate nutritional info (per muffin): 204 calories, 5g fat, 40g carbs, 2.5g protein, 21g sugars.