New Post for a New Path.

Ethiopian Cabbage, Carrots, and Potatoes (Atakilt Wat) and Basmati Rice

Recipe modified from Vegan Richa's Original Recipe here: 

https://www.veganricha.com/atakilt-wat-ethiopian-cabbage-potato/

It's time to heal from all the chaos of the last few years. In an effort to do something for myself and motivate myself to eat better, I signed up for and just completed the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate at the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. Woo! 

Well, it worked. Better than I anticipated. 

The importance of no added oil was mostly unknown to me before taking this course! I took it to motivate myself to eat better ... which, for me, means to eat vegan. I also didn't anticipate being so motivated to cut out processed foods. So, a mostly Whole Foods Plant-Based (WFPB) diet it is! I'm not one to do most things rigidly and I usually have most success when I make gradual change. These things I know about myself. Progress over perfection. 

So, no added oil cooking was a bit of a mystery to me. I've never cooked this way. Every salad dressing I made had oil in it. First step was to find some yummy things to make! I'll record some of my endeavors here. 

First up ... I made this recipe from Vegan Richa using no added oil. Ingredient list and method of preparation via the link above. I revised it to make it no oil by steaming the carrots and potatoes. I also sautéed the onion, ginger, garlic, and hot pepper in a non stick pan in some water. I added the spices and then added the shredded cabbage. It actually worked! 

I thought it would be best served with some vegan raita. So, maybe some plain vegan yogurt made into raita on top would be super yummy. 

 

I also made my standard basmati rice recipe sans oil as well. It worked! 

Oil-Free BASMATI RICE  

1 cup of rice to 1 1/2 cups of water

Heat dry pan and add dry rice. Toast the rice for a few seconds. 

Add water, stir, bring to a boil. 
As soon as the water is boiling, lower heat to low, cover the saucepan, and do not disturb for exactly 15 minutes. Turn heat off and boom! Rice. 

**Sometimes I add a cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves to enhance the flavor.

Healthy Start to the New Year

Happy New Year!
My alcohol-free month of vegan, relatively low carb, and mostly whole foods has begun!
Today was a productive start to 2015. I bathed the dog, went to the gym and lifted weights, went grocery shopping, rode my exercise bike, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, unpacked, changed the sheets on the bed, and made some delicious food.
Let's just say, the boys had other plans. ;)

Here's the stuff I ate today:
I just had coffee with coconut creamer for breakfast as I wasn't hungry. Then, I made myself a delicious lunch of what I like to call "save the crab" salad with a green salad. It's a vegan take on crab salad made with hearts of palm (instead of crab) based on the vegan crab cake recipe in Crazy Sexy Kitchen.

 

Then, I had a Mamma Chia beverage for a snack. This one was pretty good.

 

I went all out for dinner and made a black-eyed pea and root veggie tagine based on the Chickpea Tagine recipe in Crazy Sexy Kitchen. Since it's New Year's Day, I added black-eyed peas instead of chickpeas. I made mine with turnip, sweet potato, and carrot. This was out of this world good!

 

I served this with couscous and some vegan cucumber raita. I decided to make the raita with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream non-dairy sour cream this time. It was pretty excellent.

Vegan Cucumber Raita

Ingredients:
1 package Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream
1 cucumber, deseeded
about 1 teaspoon garam masala
about 1 teaspoon cumin
a few twists of freshly ground black pepper

Method:
Put sour cream in bowl. Grate about 3/4 of the cucumber directly into the bowl with a hand grater. The cucumber's juice will thin out the sour cream; you want that to happen. Add the spices. Stir and keep in fridge until ready to serve. I like to garnish mine with some cilantro leaves and leave it in the fridge for at least an hour so that the flavors blend. Mmmm.

Zucchini and Chickpea Curry (Sort of African, Sort of Indian)

Veggies and cilantro leaves getting ready to be cooked up ... and the curry cooking. Mmm

The final product (served with some vegan pierogies)! Chewie approves. ;o)

This was seriously delicious!

Zucchini and Chickpea Curry

2 zucchinis, sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
1 large can chickpeas
1 onion, diced
1 jalapeno
1 inch piece ginger root, peeled
2 cloves garlic, peeled
3 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
8oz can tomato sauce
1 bunch cilantro leaves
1-2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon of vegan butter
1-2 teaspoons cumin powder
1-2 tablespoons Madras-style medium hot curry powder
2 teaspoons hot Hungarian paprika
sea salt and black pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter and sauté the onion for a bit until translucent. Meanwhile, process the garlic, ginger, and jalapeno in a small food processor until minced. Add garlic, ginger, jalapeno mixture to the skillet and stir to combine with the onion. Stir in the fresh chopped tomatoes and zucchini. Stir in the spices and the tomato sauce. If you need to add a little water so that the zucchini is mostly covered by liquid, do so. Add chickpeas and some cilantro leaves on top. Put on lid to skillet and simmer over low-medium heat until zucchini is tender and flavors have combined. Serve with couscous, rice, or, well, pierogies tasted great with this!

Serves 4 hungry souls.

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African Black-eyed Pea Stew with Spicy Butternut Squash HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today began with some vegan pancakes for breakfast. Pancakes felt like just the right breakfast this morning. heh. I always make the pancakes from Vegan Brunch. They really are "perfect." Mmm.

 

Today also begins with my eating totally vegan for a while. I'm going to try to cut out processed foods and eat lower carb too just to  take off a few holiday season pounds. (Today's pancakes don't count. haha) I'm returning to my straight-edge vegan Krishna-core roots for at least a month as I think it really is the healthiest way to live. ;o) 

 

I like to watch a marathon of all the Planet of the Apes movies on New Year's Day. This year, I only got to the first movie 'cause I had a bit of a disaster. I finally ordered my long-awaited Vitamix (thanks mother-in-law and sister-in-law for the gift cards!!) ... and the damn thing didn't work right outta the box! WTF?! So, I have to send it back and reorder it. *cries* At least Amazon has an awesome return policy. But my smoothies will have to wait until a new one arrives. *sniff*

 

I made some avocado hummus for snacking on while we watched the movie. That's how I knew the Vitamix didn't work. :( Recipe here. Picture below. :)

 

For dinner, I made an African Black-eyed Pea Stew with Spicy Butternut Squash to be all traditional and stuff for New Year's Day. Happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year everyone!

This recipe is adapted from the Black-eyed Pea Stew with Spicy Pumpkin recipe in Linda McCartney's cookbook entitled Linda McCartney On Tour: Over 200 Meat-Free Dishes From Around The World (page 110).



 

 Black-Eyed Pea Stew

1 large onion, chopped

2 large carrots, sliced

1 bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon paprika

4 tablespoons peanut oil

1 and 1/4 cups vegetable stock

2 x 14oz cans black-eyed peas

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Tabasco to taste

 

Spicy Butternut Squash

2 tablespoons vegan butter
1 medium sized butternut squash, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons curry powder
pinch of ground nutmeg
1 and 1/4 cups water
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Black-eyed pea stew:
Sauté the onion, carrots, pepper, garlic, thyme, and spices in the peanut oil for 5 mins or so. Add the stock, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, stir in the black-eyed peas, and season to taste with salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Cover and simmer for about 15 mins, adding more stock or water as necessary until the veggies are tender.

Spicy Butternut Squash:
Melt the vegan butter in a large saucepan or pot. Sauté the onion in the butter for a bit until it softens up. Add the squash, garlic, tomatoes, spices, and water. Stir well and simmer, covered, until the squash is tender (about 10-15 mins). Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with the black-eyed peas.

This was quite good. I hope all that about black-eyed peas is true. ;o)