Burger Pressed

I have been falling behind again readers and I am sorry.  Maybe it’s the rain, maybe it’s the time of year at work, or maybe it’s the fact that I recently started watching House of Cards. But I apologize.  I will not be so lax with my posts.

Last week we tried an experiment with a fully vegan menu board. I had a lot of fun trying out some new twists on classics like Mac and Cheese and Curried Quinoa.  My partner (a die hard meat eater) fared well.  He didn’t complain about not having meat.  Once he asked if I could please add bacon, to the Mac and Cheese of course, but that was it for rumblings.  Overall it was a good week, we were satisfied, and maybe our bodies will thank us for it.

Menu Board for week of March 22nd

But this week we are back to meat eating.  Not a lot of meat mind you, snuck 2 vegan dishes in there this week.

I am really excited about the General Tso’s Chicken.  I love good Chinese food, but find it hard to replicate the same flavours at home.  Maybe because I don’t want to fry everything.  I will post tomorrow about the recipe and let you know how it goes.  Fingers crossed it goes well.

I hate to waste leftovers, but I also hate to reheat food.  It’s an odd combo I know, but I am lucky to have a garbage disposal husband who will pretty much eat anything left in the fridge if I give him the go ahead.

So after last week’s dishes I ended up left with some refried chipotle black beans from our tacos.

Burger Patties

You can check out the recipe I used for the black beans (done in the slow cooker) on the blog One Lovely Life.

It seemed logical to turn them into burgers.  I cooked up some quinoa and added that and leftover arugula to the mix.  I then made them into patties, put them on a cookie sheet to bake.  You could fry them, but I find that without egg they get a little fragile and end up falling apart.  The oven does a great job.  400 for 25 minutes or so until they develop a crust.

Top your burgers with your favourite toppings.  Ours included guacamole, chipotle “cheese” sauce made from cashew cream (also a leftover from the mac and cheese), some kale, swiss chard and spinach salad blend and a slice of tomato.  My partner also added some hot sauce onto his.  Add a side of paprika hashbrowns and a beer to wash it down, voila, it’s burger night!

Burger and a Beer

Get it Ripe

Did you know that you are supposed to eat 4 servings of leafy greens a week, or that omega-3s reduce inflammation or that you can sprout lentils?  Neither did (okay maybe I knew about the leafy greens) until I picked up the cookbook Get it Ripe by jae steele.

Cookbook

Get it Ripe was one of the first few vegan cookbooks I grabbed when I was told I needed to stop eating eggs and milk.  It was recommended to me by my Naturopath as a great book to figure out how to make substitutions in my baking.  And while this book is excellent for that (seriously good desserts, you won’t notice there is no butter!) and I got a lot of great recipes, what I really love about this book is it taught me how to eat.  The first 100 pages of the book are dedicated to teaching the reader about vegan whole foods diets, shopping locally and the skills you need to be an excellent vegan cook.  I don’t think I have ever learned as much from what I thought was a cookbook as I did reading Get it Ripe, I am also happy to support steele who is a Torontonian.  She is also a registered holistic nutritionist, and recently started studying to become a midwife.  In this book, steele’s tone is approachable and never judgmental and really made me feel like I could tackle changing the way I ate.  Her book includes a lot of gluten-free, soy-free, nightshade-free and raw/living recipes that make this a cookbook for anyone.  And I do feel like everyone should own it.

I have many favourite recipes in this book including the Simple Dal, Millet Stuffed Bell Peppers and Mocha Fudge Pudding Cake.  One year I made all my staff the Glazed Lemon Poppy Seed Cake as christmas gifts and not one believed me when I told them it was vegan.   That is my favourite trick to play.  Tonight I made one that rotates through our list of favourites quite often – Sesame Kale Soba.  It is a super quick 15 minute meal and includes some ingredients you might not have tried, or might be intimidated to try.

Sautéed Kale and Shitake Mushrooms

The main ingredient in this dish is Soba Noodles.  You have probably seen them in your grocery store.  They look like brown spaghetti and are often found in the asian ingredients section.  Soba (which is Japanese for buckwheat) noodles are made from buckwheat flour and are often served hot with a broth or cold with a dipping sauce.  These noodles have a nutty flavour that distinguishes them from your regular pasta and can be gluten free which makes it a nice alternative, just make sure to check the packaging to be sure.

The other two ingredients (that can be kind of optional if they really scare you, or you can’t find them) are dulse and  arame.  Dulse is a red alga and can be dried and made into a powder (which is what is called for in this recipe) and adds a spicy salty flavour.  Arame is a sea vegetable and is a species of kelp and a great way to incorporate more seaweed into your diet.  Typically it comes in a dried state and you would need to rehydrate it for a about 5 minutes for this recipe.  Finally I added shitake mushrooms, which are not included in this recipe, but I love the earthy flavour so I often add them in.  You can make this dish hot or cold, which makes for a great picnic salad.

Sesame Kale Soba

Sesame Kale Soba

Ingredients

• 1 bunch green or black kale
• 1 1/2 cups of shitake mushrooms roughly chopped
• 1 8oz package of soba noodles
• 3 tbsp tamari (or if you can’t find this you can substitute with 2 tbsp soya sauce and 1 tbsp water to lighten the salt content)
• 3 tbsp of sesame oil
• 1 clove of garlic grated or pressed
• 1/2 tsp dulse (optional)
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup arame, rehydrated (optional)
• 3 tbsp unhulled sesame seeds

Directions

Place a large pot of water on high heat to boil.  Wash kale, remove stems and shop.  Remove stems from mushrooms (these are chewy and not something you want to eat) and roughly chop.

Add the noodles to the water and cook for approx 6-7 minutes, checking for an “al-dente” doneness.  Sauté the mushrooms in a pan for about 5 minutes, add kale and cook together until kale is wilted and starting to crisp.  Toss veggies with drained noodles and separate into bowls.

Combine the tamari, oil, garlic, dulse and pepper in a small bowl.  Mix well and pour over noodles.  Toss gently and top with sesame seeds and arame.

**adapted from Get it Ripe by jae steele

Vegan for a Week

This week we decided to give our Menu Board a theme.  VEGAN!!!!

Menu Board for week of March 15th

A vegan diet, if you are not familiar, omits all animal products and byproducts from their diets.  This includes dairy (cheese, milk, cream, yogurt etc.), eggs and often honey (which is an insect animal byproduct).  Often times veganism extends to consumerism where vegans will eschew leather products, furs, feathers, beeswax, film and other products including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.  This week I am going to just stick to food.

Selection of Vegan Cookbooks

I was always familiar with the term veganism, but couldn’t really admit that I had cooked anything vegan intentionally.  It wasn’t until I learned I had a food allergy to dairy and eggs that I thought I might want to learn more about substitutions for those things I could no longer have.   I started by heading to our local Chapters so I could check out my favourite, the cookbook section.  I felt a little overwhelmed by ingredients in some cookbooks that seemed so foreign and felt resigned to eating a lot of boxed pasta and never going for brunch again.  A lovely sales clerk came over and suggested a few cookbooks for me to try.  I haven’t looked back since.

We have a vegan meal here or there in our diet, but I can’t say that we have ever dedicated an entire week to eating vegan.   I am excited to see how my body will respond to really truly not eating the things I am not supposed to (I cheat, a little too much) and also not eating meat.  If you also want to undertake eating vegan there are lots of options out there.  You can try a cookbook like I did, you can read blogs (like Oh She Glows!), you can even check out Dieticians of Canada who provide a food guide for vegans.

Today I thought I would share with you a simple recipe that I have adapted to make it vegan, to show you how easy substitutions can be – French Onion Soup. I have included the non-vegan ingredients in brackets so you an see how the substitutions are made)

Vegan French Onion Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp olive oil or vegan margarine (this is typically butter)

  

  Vegan French Onion Soup

• 4 whole Large (or 6 Medium) Yellow Onions, Halved Root To Tip, And Sliced Thin
• 1 cup (generous) Dry White Wine
• 8 cups Veggie Broth (this is typically 4 cups beef and 4 cups chicken broth)
• 2 cloves Minced Garlic
• Worcestershire Sauce (you would need to find a vegan version as Worcestershire often included anchovies in its ingredients)
• Several Thick Slices Of French Bread Or Baguette
• 5 ounces, weight (to 7 Ounces) Vegan Cheese, Grated, I use Daiya Smoked Gouda (this is typically grated gruyere)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Heat olive oil in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook, covered, for 20 minutes. Place soup pot into the oven with the lid slightly ajar to ensure the onions will brown. Allow onions to cook in the oven for 1 hour, stirring at least once during the cooking process so onions won’t stick and burn.
• Remove pot from oven and place back on stovetop over medium heat. Stir, scraping off all the brown, flavorful bits. Turn off heat and pour in wine. Turn heat back to medium. Cook wine for five minutes, allowing it to reduce. Add broths, Worcestershire Sauce and minced garlic and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.
• Brush one side of the bread slices with olive oil and broil over low heat, allowing bread to brown and become crispy.
• When soup is ready, ladle into bowl or ramekin. Place crispy bread on top, and then sprinkle generously with grated cheese. Broil in oven until cheese is melted and bubbly.
• Serve immediately.

Salad Days

I have not been as diligent with writing as I have been with cooking.  I will attempt to remedy that this week.  I have been craving salad a lot lately. Perhaps it is the desire for it to be warm, for spring, for grilled meats. But at this time of year I also still crave hearty meals. So this week’s theme – hearty salads.



Menu Board for week of March 8th

According to food historians the Babylonians and Romans first ate greens with the dressings of vinegar and oil almost 2000 years ago.  Salads certainly have changed and evolved in those past 2000 years. This week I have two salads on my menu.  One Vietnamese and one more tex-mex.  This weekend I pre-made the below dressing to make a weeknight dinner faster.

Cilantro Lime Dressing 

Ingredients

– 1 cup loosely packed cilantro, stems removed and roughly chopped

– 1/2 avocado (or 1/2 cup plain coconut or Greek yogurt)

– 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (about 1/2 lime), more to taste

– 1-2 cloves of garlic

– 1/4 cup of olive oil

– 1 1/2 tsp. white wine vinegar

– 1/8 tsp. salt

Directions

Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Happy eating this week!

Oh She Glows with love…

Oh She Glows by Angela Liddon is one of the most used cookbooks in my kitchen. Due to my intolerances to eggs and milk I often cook vegan so as not to be seduced by, well….cheese.  Liddon’s book provides me with many practical recipes to avoid dairy including the cashew cheese featured in today’s recipe.  I will not hide my love of Angela Liddon (also an Ontarian!).  Her website (www.ohsheglows.com) and instagram have long been in my Saturday morning grocery prep reading circulation long before she came out with her cookbook. She is currently working on her second cookbook and I applied to be a recipe tester.  Fingers crossed everyone!

Moxie also loves Oh She Glows

Thought I have tried many recipes I had not yet tried the Broccoli and Cashew Cheese-Quinoa Burrito.  I know, I know how can Cashews be or taste anything like cheese?  I have tried many recipes and this one is up there as one of the best.  The way to make something that is not cheese, taste like cheese is the addition of Nutritional Yeast.  Never heard of it?  Neither had I until I was told dairy was off limits, now it is a staple in my kitchen.  It’s a yeast that grows in molasses and then is washed and dried with heat to deactivate it.  As you can guess from it’s name it is dense with nutrients including B-vitamins, folic acid, zinc, and protein. It’s low in fat, and has no added sugars or preservatives. You often buy it in flakes or powders.  I put it on popcorn.  Give it a try, you might surprise yourself.

This recipe compliments the broccoli and quinoa nicely (think of broccoli covered in that orange “cheese” cause from when you were a kid).  However next time I would make more as I personally would have liked the burrito to be on the saucier side.  I also added some of my Mexican red sauce, to give it some extra spice.

Ingredients prep

Cashew Cheese Sauce (from The Oh She Glows Cookbook, by Angela Liddon)

Ingredients
3/4 cup raw cashews
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup unsweetened, unflavoured almond milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp white whine vinegar
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp salt

Directions
– Place the cashews in a bowl and add enough water to cover.  Soak the cashews for at least 3 to 4 hours (I soaked mine overnight) preferably longer if you have time.  Drain and rinse cashews.
– In a food processor or blender combine all the ingredients and process until smooth.  It will be thick.
– The cheese sauce is later added to the cooked veg and quinoa for the burrito.

Today I am eating the leftover filling without the wrap and it is still as delicious!

Burrito Yumminess