Plant-based

I don't call myself a vegan even though it's been years since I ate an animal product. I also try really hard not to buy leather, wool, or silk clothes, furniture, carpet, etc. I still have the leather things I bought before going plant-based, but when they are worn, I won't buy more animal-based products.* Now, since we've just moved, I've been trying to buy new furniture and rugs that are plant-based, but it's hard. I have a feeling it's going to take a long while to find a couch I like for our (completely empty except for the boxes we haven't unpacked) living room.

But! I've just found a jute rug I love!  It's here. We got the sangria-colored one. It's now making a corner of the upper hall more cozy! It's very soft. I was worried that it would be sort of rough. I got this jute one, too, but it's not nearly as soft. It'll work fine in the hallway, but it can't go in our bedroom as I'd hoped. Though I can't say how these rugs will wear, since I've only had them for a couple of days, I will say that the initial quality of them seems good.

I'm going to document the furniture / rug finds I come across on this blog 'cause it's hard to find good stuff that's plant-based and I think it falls under a "green" category.




*I have an exception. I will buy leather dance shoes 'cause there isn't a synthetic alternative for tap that is as good as the leather ones. (I'm not a great dancer, but I'm "okay" and the shoes do matter. As soon as there's an alternative that works, I'll be switch.)

No Soup last Sunday

Last Sunday, I wasn't in the mood for soup. I was a rebel and made mexican lasagna (to see a picture click here). It was yum. I found some new chipolte salsa at Whole Foods and it kicked up the spice in the lasagna. I've always "liked" Mexican Lasagna, but this last time, I loved it! I decided it would be a "company dish" and I'll make it when my brother comes to visit!

I digress...  So Mexican Lasagna yields 2.5 nights of dinners and then we're out. Last night, we didn't know what to make, so Nick (husband) checked the freezer! Soup! We had some soup from earlier when I was cooking it often! Yay! My system works. Now I'm inspired to make soup this weekend so I can freeze some more.

sweet! breakfast bar! (edited recipe on 9/28)

Scroll to the end for the final recipe for breakfast bars! Read the whole post if you want.

Note, this recipe isn't quite ready for prime time, but if you're not afraid of cooking "by feel" it's fun! Our wonderful nanny found this recipe. I thought it sounded delicious and knew it wouldn't be hard to make vegan style! The ingredients are great!

When I made the recipe, the batter for the cookies was REALLY soppy. (I don't know if that's a good word, but it's the one that comes to mind.) I made one tray of cookies and then decided I didn't want to make cookies because of how wet the batter was so I poured the soppy batter into a 9 x 11 pan, lined with a sil-pat, pan and baked it. After ~50 minutes at 350 (covered with foil for a good deal of time) I had a VERY moist cake-like creation.  My 9x11 pan wouldn't have been big enough if I hadn't have made a tray of cookies.  (Next time, I may use my 8x8 and 9x9 pan, each lined with a sil-pat for the double batch recipe.)

The cake-like creation was DELICIOUS and I knew it would make a great breakfast bar. (Store in the refrigerator and heat up--nibble on the cold pieces as you wait for the microwave to warm it; 20 - 30 seconds can be a really long time!)

Next time, I'm going to add more oat flour (maybe double) to see if I can't get decent cookies out of the deal. These were way too gooey as cookies. Very tasty, but way too gooey. I wonder if I'd started with a sweet potato and cooked it from scratch if it would have been better and less moist. Someday, I'll try that, but for now, this is easy and tasty!

4 cups sweet potato puree (2 cans)
1.5 cups oat flour
1/2 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)
1/2 cup flax (made into a really big flax egg with 1/3 warm water)
1/3 - 1/2  cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons Organic Raw Cacao Powder
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon clove
3 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

(The most important ingredient)
~2/3s a cup of chocolate chips

The girls liked the cookies and the "cake." They have a perfect fall flavor! Nick (husband) commented that there was a molasses taste--maybe a little--but there's no molasses, but that might be fun to try sometime. Kira commented that they tasted a little like gingerbread. Tia was convinced that these were my pumpkin muffins. I admit they were similar. (I like chocolate in desserts; if it doesn't have chocolate it's not worth eating in my opinion.)

Note: I used 1/2 cup of maple syrup and I don't think it was too sweet. (Remember, I don't like sweet stuff; 1/2 cup isn't a lot given how much batter you're making.) I forgot to add baking powder. Oops, the cookie and the cake stayed really flat, as you can tell in the pictures.

Here are the stats (estimated for 15 servings of the "full" not halved recipe):

Not bad on the Iron, Vitamin A, or Calcium (for a sweet treat).

Here's the recipe 1/2'd (in case you aren't feeding 2 adults plus 3 growing, active, and very hungry girls or the equivalent).

2 cups sweet potato puree (1 can)

3/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)

1/4 cup flax (made into a really big flax egg with 1/3 warm water)

1/6 - 1/4  cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon Organic Raw Cacao Powder 

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/8-1/4 teaspoon clove 

1.5 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

A gratuitous shot of the cans of sweet potatoes.

The "final" recipe for bars (9/28/2013) (I need to take a picture of bars from this recipe... the other pictures are of the first round.)

4 cups sweet potato puree (2 cans)

2 cups oat flour

1/2 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)

1/2 cup flax 

1/3 - 1/2  cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons Organic Raw Cacao Powder

1 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon clove

3 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

(The most important ingredient)

~2/3s a cup of chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients (oat flour, flax, cacao powder, ginger, clove, cinnamon, allspice, soda, powder, salt) then add sweet potatoes, almond butter an maple syrup. If the recipe seems too dry (mix well before you decide) add a splash of water or non-dairy milk.  

Bake at 350 for ~40-50 minutes. I used my 9 x 11 pan lined with a sil-pat and had to put another sil-pat in with a little on it.  I need to get something like this!

Halve the recipe if you want!

Low-key weekend

We took it easy this weekend. We needed it! When we don't have a lot going on, I love to have cooking weekends and this weekend my biggest helper and I made:

Apple Crisp

Right now, we have a lot of fuji apples. I need to research more about organic apple farming. Even though we have a lot of apples, we're losing a lot to the bugs. Boo!

Blueberry Energy Bites

I waffle back and forth and change up the kinds of nuts I use. I always use walnuts, but sometimes I add cashews. Sometimes I add oats and sometimes I don't. This time we made these just with walnuts and no oats and they were AMAZING. See the link for a picture and the recipe. We have streamlined the making process and instead of little balls, we just put it on wax paper and get it rolled flat (put wax paper on top, too) and then cut off little pieces.

Potato Soup 

I just made it last week, but my husband requested it. I doubled the recipe this time, so I could have some to freeze. Last week, we didn't have any left over to freeze. It was a big hit! This time we added corn to it, and I have more ideas to doctor this up and make it even more exciting. It's a great soup base! I'll share the new versions as it evolves. (I knew it would change!) And remember, it's soup on Sunday! 

Cornbread--home made, vegan style, but I left a little oil so I need to work on this one--no recipe today.

Low sugar PB cookies

The girls really like these! So do I! They are "not bad for you" and I let them be a breakfast cookie! The girls love eating cookies for breakfast.

Pancakes!

I make these nearly every week--yea we're kind of boring around here, but I have 3 hungry girls who like these and the recipe makes so much that we have EASY breakfasts for M,T, & W. Just heat up the leftovers. (Timesavers are needed around here!)

We also had tortilla and almost homemade pinto beans and quinoa. For lunch, the next day, we spiced the pinto beans up with a little Mexican Chipolte vegan sausage. Yum!

The rest of the weekend, we cleaned and tried to get organized... Remember, we just moved at the end of July.

We also walked.

I got a fitbit.  Did I tell you about that? I'll save it for another post. Exercise is one of the accepted topics around here.

Potato Soup

It's Sunday. Since I just declared I'd make a soup a week for simplifying my life, I needed to make a soup. Nothing on my blog jumped out at me so I decided to try my hand at a simple potato soup. Here's what I did:

3 yukon gold potatoes somewhat peeled, but not all the way
1 yellow onion
1 carrot
10 ounces of frozen cauliflower
32 ounces of veggie broth
~2 cups of water
1 cup cashews (to make into cashew cream)
Soy milk (for cashew cream or any type of non-dairy milk)

Cut up the veggies and cook until soft. Don't worry about cutting them small as you'll be pureeing them after they are cooked--just cut them in even sized chunks.  I cooked my large chunks (~1 inch or so) for about 30-40 minutes.

After the veggies are soft put all the veggies in the blender and puree. I had to do two batches of blending. Turn the blender on slow so it the hot vegetable mix doesn't burst out of the blender. Tonight, I didn't have any blender accidents, but I have in the past. The vitamix can be left on high (BAD DESIGN) and then when it's turned on it's going super fast. It's not pretty when that happens! After everything is blended, keep some of the warm, blended soup in the blender and make cashew cream.  Add 1 cup of cashews and ~1 cup of soy milk (could be whatever kind of non-dairy milk you like). I blended and then poured it all back in the pan. If you don't add enough warm soup, your cashew cream will be "lumpy" when you mix it into the pan. You can remedy this by re-blending the soup.

I added ~1 teaspoon of salt and quite a bit of black pepper (didn't measure).

Yum! Simple and delicious. We ate it with baguette and 4 out 5 of us loved it. The vegan who doesn't like vegetables tasted it and said she didn't like it.

I'll be playing with the recipe and potentially adding pepper and corn to the recipe as I think this would make a great base for corn chowder! Or nutritional yeast and broccoli for "cheezey"broccoli soup. I'll keep you posted on what evolves with this one. (Tomorrow, I'll try to get a picture. I forgot tonight.)

Modifying another recipe: Mexican Soup

I'm going to try to make soup on Sundays so that we have something quick and easy through the week and then have some (hopefully) extra to freeze. This is one of my tips here. It's a tip other people give; with tips like these, it's good to say them over and over because they are so easy to forget, but they really do make a difference and make life easier. It's the little things.

This past Sunday, I went back through my recipes and decided I wanted to make an old recipe that I have on here, but I wanted to change a few things. It's rare when I don't change something in a recipe when I make it. I cook by taste and by mood. My recipes often evolve. For me, Mexican Soup started here and now it's here:

Makes at least 8 servings.  (We've had 5 servings and we still have a lot, so I'm guessing more like 10-12)
Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups cubed sweet potatoes (I used a bag of these)

1 large sweet onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

1 large red pepper, chopped

2 zucchini diced

1 16 oz. jar of salsa (I used a "medium" chipolte salsa from Whole Foods )

1 tablespoon cumin

2--14.5 oz. can of black beans, drained & rinsed

2 cans of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes (make sure they are diced, otherwise the chunks are too big and you'll have to dice them yourself)

6 cups of low-sodium vegetable broth + 2 cups of water

1 cup cashews blended into cashew cream

1 bag of kale/spinach (I used about 6 ounces of kale, but you can NEVER add too much kale, in my opinion).


Optional:  Add 1 1/2 cups of frozen roasted corn
Throw in some quinoa for the last 20 minutes of cooking (or make it on the side).

Preparation:
Roast the corn and the red pepper to bring out the flavors. I microwaved the frozen sweet potatoes and then threw everything in the pot, brought it to a boil, and then let it all simmer for about hour.  Add the quinoa at the 45 minute mark (or start cooking it in another pan).

After about an hour, add salsa, cumin, black beans, & broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

While it's cooking make your cashew cream.  (I used 1 cup cashews and 3/4 cup water and blended. Tip: Use warm water to make the cream blend into the soup more easily.)

Add in cashew cream. Whisk well and make sure the soup is hot. If you have the quinoa in the soup, it's a meal in a bowl. If you don't have the quinoa in the soup serve with rice, bread, or whatever else you'd like!

Let me know what you think and I'll let you know if I make any more changes to the soup.