Dinner equation

http://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/mexican-style-bean-rice-casserole/
+
http://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/no-cheese-sauce/

-

the brown rice

+

hashbrowns

=

Easy Dinner

I  made the "no cheese sauce" linked above and listed below and poured it over hash browns, black beans, frozen corn, and kale and then mixed well.

Here's the recipe for the no cheese sauce:
1 small yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped <--this could be roasted or sauteed first,
2 large red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup cashews
2 tablespoon tahini
1/8 cup nutritional yeast <--Can substitute garbanzo bean flour if you don't like/don't have nutritional yeast.  I think I might like it this way better.
1-2 teaspoons chili powder
1-2 teaspoons garlic
1-2 teaspoons chipolte powder
Salt to taste

Put in a blender/food processor and blend until smooth.

I put 1 pound bags of hash browns in 9x9 glass pans and in one pan I mixed in one can of black beans (15 ounces) about 1-2 cups of kale, and 1/2-1 cup of frozen corn <--note I don't really measure.

In another pan, I put another 1 pound bag of hash browns and just black beans.  <-- This was for the vegans who don't like vegetables (

I poured half the no-cheese sauce over each pan of hash browns and stirred it all up.  In the oven at 350 for about an hour (covered for the first 45 minutes).

Here it is!

Horrible picture... (and we'd already eaten half the pan).

Verdict:  The vegan who likes vegetables loved it, Nick and I loved it (even more the second day), and Tia liked it.  Tia and Natalie asked for it again the same week we first made it.  We made it on Christmas eve as yummy winter comfort food. 

Kira didn't like the texture of the (soft) hash browns.  I wonder if they were more diced potato shaped and less shredded hash brown shaped what she'd think.  Hrm.... Kira did come up with a great name for this dish... a hasharole.  :-)

I think this would be great with cashew cream--or roasted onions (or any roasted veggie) on side--or salad!  A green salad would be lovely.


Very similar to this dinner:  http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2016/04/new-dinner-broccoli-hashbrowns-and-spice.html

Happy thanksgiving

 

Here's another shot... Silly Natalie!

Turkey

 

Here is a picture of the Thanskgiving Turkey... Finally!  More pictures soon.

Look at the green!

 
Taken a few weeks back.  Our winter garden is growing slowly.  We have decided that we'll plant in October rather than November from now on.  

The day before the Thanksgiving Celebration

Last year, we stuffed our faces!

This year, we're doing it again and having four more people join us. 

We're making the same brussels sprouts (but doubling them), the same stuffing, and the same turkey.

New this year... Kira made a HUGE carrot salad! <-- She shreds a ton of carrots and adds spices and balsamic vinegar and oil.  It tastes awesome. It was inspired by carrot salads eaten while in France.

Friends are coming and are bringing a wild rice apple walnut salad, cranberry sauce, a green salad, and wine.  So excited!

The girls and I made pumpkin pies ...  (actually Kira and Tia did while Nat and I worked on the tofu turkey). I linked to the recipe version I use for pumpkin pies all the time now.  (It took a lot of trial to figure out what I liked!) I also have a soy free variation for pumpkin pie there.

We're starting the tofu turkey today -- you kind of need to.  You have to drain the tofu, then add spices <-- easiest done in the food processor, then place it in a colander with cheesecloth under it (so you can get it out of the colander) and let it drain some more; as it sits there the flavor of the spices comes out.

You also put it in the colander so you get a round bowl shape to it.  You hollow it out and fill it with stuffing to bake... see http://chefinyou.com/2009/11/18/tofu-turkey-recipe/.  I'll try to get some pictures of mine later. 


Today we have to make:
mashed potatoes and roasted potatoes <-- Kira is doing that.
Gravy <-- me
Turkey <--Nat and me
Sourdough baguette <--buy at whole foods
Dressing/stuffing (Nick cut up the bread yesterday) <--Nat and me
Brussles sprouts <-- Tia

Oh, and I made the cauliflower curry soup so we'd have more already prepared food ahead of time. 

Zucchini

 

Here is the zucchini roasting in the oven! It has a little olive oil on it and is with onions!  It was lovely with marinara sauce!  They were roasted until each piece was golden brown and wonderfully caramelized.  (I spent a lot of time pulling the "done" pieces off of trays and stirring zucchini! It was worth it!  It probably took about 1.5-2 hours to get it all roasted.)

The other green (one more product we love)

Half of us still love our stainless steel straws and half of us love these silicone straws.

One other silicone product we love!

Dinner came to me in an email...

The other day, I got an email from Forks over knives and it had a link to this http://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/creamy-potato-curry/:

I thought it looked interesting and was hopeful that everyone would eat it. Kira, our vegan who doesn't like vegetables, does love potatoes and likes curry and other Indian flavors. I'll include what I did here, but take a look at their site for the original recipe (and good photos).

1/2 - 2/3 cup cashews
6 Yukon Gold Potatoes, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 yellow onion, diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 bag of frozen cauliflower
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 tablespoons of an Indian Spice mix that I have that has cumin, coriander, and garlic in it (this is it)
1 cup (or so) of frozen kale
1-2 cups frozen green peas
1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

Instructions:

1. Soak cashews in 2/3s - 1 cup of water.  I soaked mine in the blender while I got veggies prepared

2. Place the potatoes and 2 cups of water in a large pot. <-- I didn't think this was enough water, but it was okay.

Cover and bring to a boil, then add the onion, carrot, garbanzo beans, and cauliflower.  (I added them all at the same time because I thought they would be a better texture if I did.)  Reduce the heat to medium-low-medium and simmer, covered, for 10-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add spices, and continue cooking, covered, for 10 minutes.

4. Blend cashews until smooth, then stir the cashew cream into the pot.

Before adding the green stuff (step ), I pulled some of the garbanzo beans, carrots, and potatoes for the vegans who don't like vegetables (Kira and Tia--my sweet girls who are slowly getting better about eating different foods).

5. Add the kale and peas and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the kale is tender.


Verdict... we will totally make this again!  3 out of 3 people who like vegetables really liked it!

Bad picture of the yummy dish below.  Thanks Forks over knives for another great meal!

Final Fall Harvest

 

We got these, plus four more eggplants, from our garden and then we pulled the plants to plant the winter garden.  It was end of October. We needed to plant the winter garden!

Last weekend I roasted a ton of zucchini and this weekend I did a ton of eggplant.  I'm getting ready to make Baingan Bharta, not just my Italian eggplant. 

Yum!

This was my "find" at the grocery store (Whole Foods) yesterday.  Ninja Squirrel Sriracha Trail Mix... What's not to love?  

Happy November

It's Nanoblopomo!  I'm not signing up to do a post a day, but I am going to try to do more this month... Considering the last few months, August was 3, September was 0, and October was 3, 4 would be a new high... Actually, in July I hit 6.  Okay, that's a stretch goal.

In actual substantive food thoughts, here's what I plan to make for dinner.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  I also have a plan to stream line things a bit.  When I was telling a new friend about my blog I explained how I tried to make really healthy food really fast!  I take short cuts all the time and use frozen veggies instead of fresh. When our garden is producing we eat very locally grown fresh veggies, but frozen does save me time because someone has already washed and cut them for me.  My own personal sous-chef...er, maybe not personal.

Kira plans to make home made pesto with fusilli pasta.  Maybe two posts out of tonight's dinner?  And tomorrow I will be roasting the final zucchini and eggplant from our garden.... The zucchini and eggplant plants are now out of the garden and we have bok choy and broccoli planted for winter!  They are cute and little, but soon we'll have winter greens--pictures below!
 
  

Blended Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding

I love the idea of chia seeds and all the great nutrients they contain (google to learn more), but I like my puddings to be smooth.  I don't like chia seeds stuck in my teeth.  I LOVE this pudding!

2-3 Tablespoons Peanut Butter
3-4 cups non dairy milk
1 cup chia seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2-2/3 cup cocoa Powder
1/2 -2/3 cup Maple syrup

(Yes, I give ranges of ingredients... It's 'cause I started with the first amount and then sample/taste and add some more of the ingredient in question, but I don't measure that carefully.)

Put it all in your high speed blender---blend until smooth.  Pour into 8 serving cups and chill overnight (or stick it the freezer so you can enjoy it in a couple of hours).

Makes 8 servings.  Probably 250-ish calories per serving if you use flax milk (this is what we're using most of the time for "milk" now).

Enjoy!
 

(Yes, we eat this for dessert and breakfast.)

One rainy day (October 16)!

I made two soups...

Split Pea soup and a Chipotle Mexican soup

Here's the Split Pea soup recipe:

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups dried split peas
1  teaspoon salt -- (I didn't think this was too much, but you may want to start with 1/2 teaspoon or less if you're watching your salt intake)
6-7 cups veggie broth (I split 3 veggie broths between two soups, so I'm not sure how much exactly.  Also, if you broth is salty, this will relate to how much salt you add.)

2-3 carrots, chopped
3 potatoes, diced
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
pinch dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions
In a large pot over medium high heat, saute the oil, onion, bay leaf and garlic for 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent. Add the peas, barley, salt and water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, parsley, basil, thyme and ground black pepper.  Simmer for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. The split peas should get very soft and start to fall apart.  See picture!

Next time make more as 4 of 5 of us really like this soup!  (P.S. I like to add a little sriracha to my split pea soup!)

 

Chipotle Mexican soup recipe sometime soon.

Veggies

I am totally out of the blog habit here! Maybe I can make it a goal, for November, to blog once a week. I know Nanoblopomo is supposed to be every day, but that seems a little crazy right now.

For the last few months, our garden was going insane... I've been dealing with tons of eggplants, tomatoes (making soup with them), and now we have zucchini.  Did I tell you about our zucchini? Back in June, we had two plants that were going gangbusters... and then a rabbit ate them.  It was a very sad day.

I had gotten about 4 or 5 zucchini, but it was barely July and I wanted more zucchini.  Nick cut the plants way back and he thought they might make a come back.  I was dubious.  My friend Patti gave me a little zucchini plant from her garden.  It wasn't getting enough sun and she thought it might do better at our house.

We transplanted the zucchini and then we had a heat wave.  We thought her poor little plant might not make it.  Miraculously it did and lo and behold, our two plants came back, too.  All 3 started producing again in September.

Her plant turned out to be a crooked neck summer squash.

Because our garden is very prolific, I now have zucchini in the new deep freeze so I can stick it in soups and make bread with it this winter!  I have lots of summer squash, too.  (Note, it's near the end of October.  Note our summer garden is till out there and we don't have the winter one in yet.  No worries, our winter one went in during November last year.)


Today, I finally made something other than veggie soup with a tomato base.  Today I roasted zucchini, summer squash, and onions with olive oil and a little garlic.  I made angel hair pasta and figured we'd eat the veggies with marinara sauce. My vegan who loves veggies did that.

I also made zucchini hummus (using almond butter instead of cashews), but it turned out runny.  I decided it would make a lovely sauce on top of the pasta with roasted veggies.  Indeed, it did.  Nick and I loved it!  It was so tasty I forgot to get a picture of it.  Maybe tomorrow we can get one with the left overs (most likely not!).

  I have more zucchini and onions to roast in the oven!  (And more to freeze!)

Tomatoes!

When your garden goes a little crazy and gives you a lot of tomatoes you take a bunch, cut them up, throw them in a pan with a little olive oil, a little balsamic, dried basil, oregano, and garlic. Toss them over some noodles. Yum.

 

Deep freeze

Our garden, and fruit trees, produce so much that I decided we needed a deep freeze. Now I have to fill it. Fortunately, I have very prolific tomatoes, and a full Fuji apple tree to help. Egg plants are still ripening, too! Anyone want to come over and help me pick and process from the garden? It's a wonderful problem, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed!

Eggplant! Homegrown!

Nick grew these. I cooked them. Good team work!  It felt like Christmas in August!

Garden in July

 
So many tomatoes!  yum!  We got the first ones a couple weeks ago.  We have eggplant!  I need to harvest and cook.  We just got a zucchini from a friend... A ground squirrel ate our other plant.  I hope the transplanted zucchini makes it!  

pancakes

 She made pancakes! It was this recipe (basically--minus the wheat gluten).



 
(July 10 -- cross posted from the family blog)

Pancakes by Natalie and Kira

Read all about them on Natalie's blog!

Corn and tomatoes

Today's harvest!

 

 

It might be summer!

so many things to blog...

I need to blog about our plum tree and how many plums it gave us.  I need to blog about how I finally learned how to do something with the plums!



Back in 2013, we made a plum crisp... http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2013/07/from-trees.html I called it tart, and initially I thought I just needed more sugar, but as I thought about it, I realized it was BITTER.  I also realized that no matter how much sugar I added, it wouldn't solve the problem.

I don't remember if we had many plums in 2014, but in 2015, we barely had any so I didn't think about how to use them.  However, this year, we had a bumper crop and I needed to do something with them. Even if one likes plums, you can only eat so many a day!

One friend (with four kids) took about 50 of them (in two batches). I gave another 30-40 or so away at work.  I think I lost about 20-30 letting them go bad on the counter... And that just left me about another 200-250.

Sigh.

We let a lot fall off the tree 'cause we didn't pick them fast enough ('cause I didn't know what to do with all the plums).  (You have to pick our plums when they are still sort of red.  They turn deep purple when ripe, but too many fall off the tree when you let them ripen all the way so you have to pick them a day or two early.)
I finally turned to my friend google and googled bitter plums...

I learned that it was most likely the skins that were causing the problems.  I learned a good trick to getting the skins off.  Roast 'em!

Rinse plums, remove any stems that might still be on them, and place plums on a baking tray (with sides 'cause the juice will run off if you don't and will make a mess if you don't have sides).

Stick in the oven at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

Let 'em cool until you can handle them and peel the skins and pit them.  The skins will totally slip off.  You do have to do some work to get the pit out.  I was covered in plum juice (very red!) and I won't talk about how I accidentally went to the store with plum juice splattered on my face.  (And yes, I did have some dribbled down by my mouth 'cause I was eating some of those roasted plums -- you know, for quality control!)

Some one suggested a food mill and someone else suggested a poor man's food mill which is a colander and a spatula.  (Note, I might invest in a food mill someday... Any suggestions or favorite brands, let me know.)

I am happy to report that google (and all the people who posted about their experiences with bitter plums) was right.  Skinning the plums made a difference and now our plum crisps are awesome.  They are a little tart, but they aren't bitter.  I even made sour plum (but not bitter) jam!  Fun!

I plan to use this roasting trick on our tomatoes -- they are just about getting ready to burst forth!  (I think the roasting trick will work better than the boiling a peeling method I did last year.)
 
Okay, I can cross off my need to blog about plums, but I still need to blog about many other things:

I need to blog about my workout and twice a week at Body Pump!

I need to blog about getting ready for the fourth of July!

I need to blog about our awesome new granola!

I need to blog about vegan friendly treats at Baskin Robbins!

I need to blog about getting a deep freeze for all the wonderful foods from our garden and trees! (We're still looking!)

Tomato Soup, by Tia

When Tia was little, under 2, she was sitting in my lap while I was eating dinner, I looked down and saw her grabbing the tomatoes out of my salad and licking them.  The phrase, "don't lick my tomatoes" was born that night.  (File under a phrase you never thought you'd have to say.)

She does love tomatoes.  She and Kira wanted a tomato soup.  We tried one recipe last Thanksgiving, and I liked it, but the girls wanted something a little different.  Here's what Tia found; she made it and they loved it. (It's a winner, all 5 of us like it!)

http://coalefinnsoftball.blogspot.com/2016/06/today-i-made-tomato-soup-with-my-nanny.html

This summer, we are doing our reading and writing program.  The reading program started years ago, probably 6 or 7 years ago, and the girls would get paid a penny a page for reading.  The books had to be at or above their reading level and they had to write the titles down, the name of the book, the number of pages, and then at the end of the summer they'd have to total up what they earned.  They all read a ton.  They like to read so it's an easy way for them to earn some summer money.

As they grew older, and all are fantastic readers, we decided the program should evolve a little.  They started blogging for money a couple of summers ago.  They get paid a penny a word.  They blog, and at the end of the summer we grab all the blog posts and word count them in a word processor.  Again, they are responsible for the tallying and they get paid.

We now have a limit on how much money you can earn by reading (it's $75) and no limit on what you can earn by writing.   (Actually, the rule is apparently a little more subtle... After you earn $25 in blogging you can earn more by reading... Next summer it's going to be the simpler rule of 75 for reading and no limit for blogging.)

This summer, I decided that we should evolve the blogging program a little more and if you find a recipe, make it, and blog about it, you get $5 for that post.  (You get $7 if you create a recipe and blog about it.)  I like new recipes and I like the girls to cook.  (We'll see if the payment stays as high for next summer.)  So far, we've gotten a few new recipes.  This post links to the first one this summer.  Go Tia!

Just barely: Zucchini Hummus

May was an incredibly busy month.  I'm titling this post "just barely" 'cause it feels like I just barely survived.  Last January, I learned just how crazy it was going to be, and I worked hard to pace myself. The crazy lasted through the beginning of June.  I'm resting and recovering this weekend after two weekends of dance shows and a trip to the east coast.

Even though I barely survived, our garden is going crazy! 

 

 

Last year, we had a lot of zucchini, and it's the same story this year.  Tonight, Nick and I are making zucchini bread (and may I just say that my new food processor is a dream!).  It shredded zucchini almost instantly, for the bread, and we made zucchini hummus.

What's in zucchini hummus you may ask...

Zucchini (1 large-ish one and I peeled it, but will try it next time without peeling)

2 cloves of garlic

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup tahini

3/4 cup cashews

2 teaspoons chili powder

1/3-1/2 cup lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon (or more) cayenne pepper

1/2 - 1 teaspoon cumin

It tastes "fresh and light" according to Nick.  I'll put it on some lovely broccoli (alas, not from my garden) and enjoy it for dinner.  It'll pair well with tomatoes (when they come next month), and it's a nice change!  We'll see if the vegan kid who likes vegetables likes zucchini hummus.  I'm not sure the other two are going to like it, but that's okay.

Strawberry-licious

I created a strawberry, baked oatmeal sort of breakfast cake.

1/2 cup almond buttter
1 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup almond flour
1 cup oat flour
1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup psyllium or 1/4 cup oat bran
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt
up to 1/4 cup of flax milk to mix the batter (if needed), but you don't want it too runny 'cause it will take longer to bake.
(If the batter seems too wet, add in some whole oats--if it's wet at this point, it will get way too wet with the added strawberries.)

10 ounces of frozen strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix almond butter, maple syrup, vanilla.

Add the almond flour, oat flour, flax meal, psyllium and baking powder. I strongly recommend using a mixer for this recipe!

Let the strawberries sit out to soften while you mix everything else and then chop the strawberries by hand into small-ish pieces. Mix them in last, by hand.

Line a 9x13 pan with a silpat or parchment paper and pour the batter in.  Bake for 30-45 minutes -- depending on how much liquid was in the batter (e.g., depending on how much flax milk you added and how much moisture was in the strawberries).

Let cool for a few minutes and then enjoy!

 

It's not a very good photo, but it's super yummy.

Soap nuts

 

We have our gray water system up and running! (It's been running for a couple months now, this is just the first chance I've had to post about it.)  Nick found these berries that are actually soap-like; they are really cool, you stick 4-5 of them in a little muslin bag and wash your  clothes with them. They are completely biodegradable.  Nature is awesome! Plants are awesome. 

New dinner: May 2016

Natalie came back from a trip to Disneyland and wanted "not junk food."  She is my vegan who loves veggies.  She found this recipe on Oh She Glows and we made it together.  It was Mother's Day, and I could have gotten out of making dinner, but I like cooking with my girls! 

 

We used whole wheat cappelini ('cause we had it--you can use whatever you like) and broccoli, carrots, edamame, red pepper and green onions all sliced up.

(It's hard to tell the red pepper from the carrots, but it there is red pepper in there!)

What we did:

Chopped the veggies (use any you like!).

Cooked our noodles and set aside.

Mixed up the Teriyaki Sauce.

1/8 cup rice vinegar
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup tamari (low sodium is good)

1 tablespoon (maybe slightly less) untoasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons maple syrup (slightly more actually)

2 cloves garlic finally chopped

1/2 - 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (use less for less heat)

1 teaspoon cornstarch (or some thickening if you want, not essential)

Then we cooked the chopped veggies in a large skillet (I don't have a wok) with sesame oil.  We cooked the broccoli, carrots, and edamame for about 6 minutes, then the red pepper and cooked for another couple minutes, and then the green onions at the end.

We added some of teriyaki sauce stirred, added noodles, stirred, added sauce, stirred ... you get the picture, until we had as many noodles in the pan as we wanted.

I made a second batch of the teriyaki sauce and cooked some more noodles without veggies for Kira, my vegan who doesn't like vegetables.  (She drank her Kale smoothie with dinner.)

We'll definitely make this again!  All 5 liked it (in some form).

Bean harvest

A little over 1/2 of our bean harvest.
(tea mug for scale)

bee

This little bee is on a broccoli flower.  I may make her the mascot of I like it green! I love her.
 
 
 
 



    I call this one "artistic bee."



  This is "nothing can stop the natabee!"

Working on a new recipe

 
My girls can cook!  All of them!  This summer we'll share more of their cooking.  This is Natalie working on perfecting a chocolate chip muffin. I think she got it just the way she wanted it.  I'll have to share it with you all soon -- or maybe she will blog it here.

Oh!  Here's a photo she took of cupcakes she and her sisters made one day. Yum!

New dinner: Broccoli, hashbrowns, and spice

I have a lot of broccoli in my garden. My winter garden is coming to an end (probably in a week or two) but for now, we are enjoying the broccoli. I don't know how much I got today, but I cleaned and chopped for a long time.  It was the biggest bunch I'd ever picked. I should have taken a picture. Alas.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for new ideas for my broccoli and kale.  I found this:
 http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2013/02/healthy-hash-brown-casserole.html

I changed it up a little.  Here's what I did:

Sauce1 1/4 cups water and 1/4 cup cashews -- make a cashew cream in the blender

In another larger bowl mix:
the cashew cream
1 cup plain, sugar-free non-dairy milk (I used soy)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons potato starch or cornstarch (I used cornstarch)
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 - 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 - 1 teaspoon powdered mustard seed
1-2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional
1/2 tub of the chipotle salsa (pictured)

Casserole
Veggie broth as needed for cooking the onion and broccoil (see below for instructions)
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
A LOT of broccoli ... 'cause I had it.  I probably used the equivalent of 3 big heads
16 ounces frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed (no oil)
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained

 

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grease a 11x9-inch baking dish.

Saute the onion in broth when soft add in the garlic, broccoli, and cook until broccoli is slight soft.  Add the sauce, hash browns, and chickpeas.

Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce begins to thicken. Pour into prepared baking dish.

Cover with foil (I use a silpat) and bake for 40 minutes.

Uncover and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Serve hot.





Yum!  Comfort food!  Only 3 out of 5 of us liked it, but those of us who did really liked it.


I'll make this again with kale.  This is the second time I made the casserole and I used cashew cream (like I said in the ingredients. On the orginal recipe she suggested using tahini instead of cashew cream.  I tried it with tahini the first time and I definitely like cashew cream better.

Sunday dinner

You may remember Sunday night was all about soups for a while, then burgers, and now I'm trying to make at least one new recipe a month. I've already made one this month, but I have time so why not two?

I can't decide which one to try...

http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2013/02/healthy-hash-brown-casserole.html
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/11/creamy-vegan-broccoli-and-rice-casserole.html

I think I'm going to do the first one--they are very similar, but potatoes sound good.  Oh, but I'm going to be crazy and stick broccoli in the first one instead of Kale.  (We have lots of both in our garden, but more broccoli.) I'll report back later.

(Maybe potatoes sound good 'cause Kira and her friend made these beauties last night--two trays worth. Yum!)

High fiber breakfast cookies

We like cookies...  Here are some that aren't too bad that we often make and eat for breakfast (and other times...).

Wet ingredients
½ cup (or 8 Tbsp) nut/seed butter (almond, peanut, tahini, or sunflower  etc.) We like peanut butter!
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1 t vanilla extract
½ cup liquid sweetener maple syrup (I sometimes do slightly less and add a little water)

Dry ingredients
½ cup  ground oats flour 
½ cup  ground almond flour
3 tablespoons flax
½ c rolled oats (not ground)
½ c fiber (either oat bran or whole flakes psyllium husks) You can choose how fiber-y you want them.
½ t baking soda

1/4 cup chocolate chips mixed in at the end (could be raisins or dried fruit if you wanted, but we like chocolate).   

Preheat oven to 350. Mix wet ingredients with a mixer.  Mix dry ingredients and add to wet. Batter will be thick (and delicious!).  Make into tablespoon sized balls and then flatten a bit.  Bake for 9-12 minutes.

Warning, if you use psyllium husks, I wouldn't eat more than 2 or 3 cookies in one day; plus, drink lots of water with these cookies (regardless of which fiber you use, but especially with psyllium)!   

P.S. If you make these with psyllium, you may need to add 2-6 tablespoons of water to get a good cookie dough consistency.  (I had to add 6 yesterday, add 1 tablespoon at a time until it looks good.)

 

 

 

 

Natalie and I make these often.  They freeze really well, too.  Pop them out of the freezer and into the microwave for 30 seconds (or so) and they are awesome.  Photos by Natalie.