Kale

 

We harvested some of the big kale.  So far it's been put into a soup and a smoothie.  It is super fun to have the garden! We'll need to harvest more, soon. We'll learn how much we can harvest and have it keep growing. I'm very curious to learn.

Vegan Thanksgiving

We celebrated at home with just us.  I made:

Vegan Mashed Potatoes
Yukon gold potatoes (4)
Garlic (2-3 cloves)
Cashew Cream (about 1/3 of a cup)
Salt
Pepper
A little soy milk
A little earth balance 
(I could probably make runnier cashew cream and omit the soy if I wanted to.)

I had never MADE mashed potatoes before so I just LEARNED that you need to make them RIGHT before eating so they are nice and hot.  I had to heat them up in the microwave. They were still yummy.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup
(I made it with Cashew Cream)

A big green salad
Romaine
Tomatoes
Cucumber

Red Pepper Spread (with Sourdough)

Pumpkin Pie
I made the filling from this recipe and just used a store bought vegan crust for one of the pies and plain chocolate chips as the crust for the other recipe (it falls apart, but it is YUMMY!). (The crustless pie is topped with Rice Whip.)

 

What a yummy day!  We'll do another celebration with friends on Saturday.

Red Pepper Spread

Inspired by Oh She Glows, again, I made this delightful, delicious red pepper spread.  Hers was more of a muhammara than mine, 'cause I left the bread out, didn't toast the walnuts, and I used sweet red peppers. You know I can't follow directions and I like doing mash ups of recipes (pun intended).

What did I do?

I roasted about 8 red peppers, with olive oil.  I just put a little olive oil on each pepper and broiled for about 20 minutes at 450, then I flipped them over and watched them (probably about another 15-ish minutes.) I only used 4 in this recipe. The others will be used when I make this for our Saturday get together.


Put all the ingredients in your food processor:

4 roasted red peppers
1 cup walnuts
2 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons smoked paprika (my new favorite spice!)
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of tomato paste

Process until mostly smooth and serve with bread.

 

So delicious! I didn't toast the walnuts, but it was still excellent.  Next time I may toast the walnuts, just for fun. For the record, it was delicious with raw walnuts.  

We think it will be excellent on wraps, (vegan) burgers, and just as a dip. This was Nick and my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner.  (Natalie kind of liked it, Kira wouldn't try it, and Tia said it was okay.) (I don't care if the girls eat it or not--more for us!) 

P.S. See the pictures at Oh She Glows!

Homemade adobo sauce

I had no idea what it was until a couple of weeks ago and now it is one of my favorite things. You take these bad boys (dried and smoked chipotle peppers) and cook them in tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, garlic, cumin, honey (could be any sweetner), water....

I had no idea what I was doing so I started with 12 of them.  I made a lot of stuff with this sauce this weekend.

I used 12 chipotle peppers (slice them open and empty the seeds) (then be afraid of your fingers because they will be very peppery and could sting your eyes)
I used two small (7 ounce) jars of tomato paste
about 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (1/3 to 1/2)
about 1/2 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons cumin
water about 1.5 cups
2 cloves of minced garlic

Put it all in a pan, stir and cook (simmering and stirring occassionally) for about 1/2 hour to hour.  I did an hour.

This stuff is AWESOME!


So what did I make?

this from Minimalist Baker
Chipotle Hummus
Mexican Lasagne (Basically this recipe but with an added layer of Adobo Sauce)

I froze enough of the sauce for at least one more batch of Chipotle Hummus (maybe two).
YUM!

Chipotle hummus

 

So good we couldn't wait to eat it!

http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2012/12/garbanzo-bean-hummus.html  + Homemade Adobo Sauce

Okay, here are the details so you don't have to click:

2 (15-ounce) cans garbanzo beans (drained, but save the liquid from one can in case you need it)
1-2 lemons, juiced (usually 6-10 tablespoons depending on how lemon-y you like it; we went through a phase where we (Kira) really liked it lemon-y. Now we tend to make it less lemon-y like 6 tablespoons)
2 garlic cloves (or more depending on how much garlic you like)
2-3 tablespoons tahini
1-2 teaspoons salt (unless your beans are already salted, if so, salt to taste and you probably won't need too much) 

plus about 3/8ths of a cup of Adobo sauce + 3 of the peppers (still in the sauce) (See the sauce recipe, you do have to click here.)

Tumeric Tea

I've read about tumeric tea for a long time. I finally decided to try it.

Yum.  I'll try it with almond milk next.

I put ~ 3 cups of water in a pan and 1 teaspoon of tumeric. Boiled, and poured a big cup of it. I poured in a teaspoon of honey.  Yum!  I totally skipped straining it and it was fine.  I took the remainder, about a cup, and added ginger tea bag.  I'll try that tomorrow and report back.

Tumeric is supposed to be amazing for you.

Might help, can't hurt.  My motto for what I eat, drink, and do.

A long time since I've blogged

Take a look at how much the kale has grown!