the whole enchilada

The other day, Kira found this enchilada recipe and she made it with her friend.  I've never made enchiladas before, but I happily tried it.  It was good.  Good job finding a new dinner, Kira! We decided to make it again. 

I changed things a little from the original site.  I put kale, onions, and corn in mine (Nick's and Natalie's), but Kira (and Tia) stuck with black beans and rice (no veggies).  She used a little Daiya Cheese (and so did Tia and Natalie).  Nick and I enjoyed ours sans the Daiya cheese.  We made the cashew sour cream for topping.  OMG!  It's good! The whole recipe is good.

I plan to change the sauce a little next time by adding a little less chili powder, adding more tomato paste, and adding a little cumin.

Here's the recipe with the modifications I plan to make:

Enchilada Sauce
    • 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 1/4 cup flour
    • 2 tsp garlic powder
    • 2 tbsp oregano
    • 1 tbsp cumin
    • 5 tbsp chili powder
    • ½ tsp salt
    • 1 7-ounce jar of tomato paste
    • 3.5 cups vegetable broth
(If you want more kick add a little cayenne and/or chili powder.  The original version of the sauce had 8 tablespoons and it seemed like too much, but I haven't tried making this with 5.  I'm guessing 5-6 tablespoons will be the sweet spot.  I'll fix when I make this again and decide.) (I doubled her amount of sauce because I like sauce and there are 5 of us.)

Cashew Cream
    • ½ cup raw cashews
    • 2 tbsp lemon juice
    • 1 garlic clove
    • ¼ cup water
    • ½ tsp salt
    • ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Kale Filling
    • ½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 yellow onion, diced
    • 4 cups frozen kale
    • ½ cup corn kernels  

Black Beans
    • 2 15oz cans of black beans (cooked with 1 clove of minced garlic, 2 tsp cumin, and ~3/4 tsp salt--'cause my beans were unsalted.)

Directions:
Enchilada Sauce
    • Heat oil, add flour; whisk until smooth.
    • Add spices, tomato paste, and vegetable broth. Whisk until smooth. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. It will thicken.

Cashew Cream
    • Add all ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender and process/blend until very smooth.  (If you're using a food processor you may want to soak the cashews for 20 or so minutes first.)

Kale Filling
    • Saute onion in a little olive oil or broth (your preference), and cook until softened, about 5-10 minutes.
    • Add Kale cook until soft
    • Add corn cook until warm

Rice
We also made some rice for the tortillas 'cause that's what 2 of my girls wanted.

After everything is cooked, preheat your oven to 350F and pour some of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.  Fill each tortilla with about 2 tablespoons of veggies to a tortilla, add rice (if you want) and a spoonful of black beans.  Roll it up tightly, and place seam-side down in your baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas. (We made 10 tortillas, but had to use two pans.) Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas, cover everything well. Cover the baking dish with foil, (I used a silicon baking sheet) and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling. Serve with a cashew cream




   

Fall Garden

Over the weekend, our head gardener and two lovely assistants planted broccoli, peas, fava beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and kale.  I am so excited!

The lettuce and carrots were seeds, the rest were little sproutlings.   (Why doesn't my spell checker like sproutlings?  That's a great word!)  Leftover from summer are pepper plants (orange and red) and there are some happy poppies that survived the tilling of the summer last spring and sprouted.

 

 

 

 
(This post is cross posted to the family blog, too.)

Christmas dinner

 

It's eggplant fried in a lot of olive oil, then baked in tomato sauce. It could be worse, it could still be slathered in mozzarella. I also added a bed of cooked kale to my plate ('cause I really like kale and pasta!) and tried not to go back for seconds.  (Note, true confession, I still make it with cheese for my non-vegan husband and niece. I don't miss cheese. )

My Dad's Sauce is part of this wonderful dish; it is very healthy. If you haven't made your own marinara spaghetti sauce before, try it!  My friend PS tried making it last year and loves it.  She was convinced by another friend, and I'm so glad!

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.

A long time since I've blogged

Take a look at how much the kale has grown!

Growing Kale!

 

From this to this!

 

Can't wait until they get a little bigger!!!!  We're planting more this weekend! 

Momba v2

I'm always changing things up, trying to get more veggies in and to make things more whole-foods-ish. (I don't think that's a word, but I'm sticking with it.) The last time I gave you my green shake recipe I did it a little differently. This year, it evolved. We still drink this every night as an appetizer for dinner. A salad in a cup!

This serves 5
2 carrots
1/4 -1/2 cup of raw almonds
1 banana
2-3 cups frozen kale (or 2-3 cups packed fresh kale)
10-16 ounces of water (adding a mixture of ice and water is good--more ice makes it thick. You do need enough water to blend it all though, so it's a careful dance)
4-5 teaspoons of Calcium powder (see pictures below)*

Blend well
Now add:
10-16 ounces of frozen strawberries
(I sometimes stick in apples, or other fruit.)
Add more ice if you need to for thickness.

2 of us drink it this way, so we serve up two 12 -14 ounce servings in 2 glasses.
Then  we add 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate chips and blend again (well) and serve up another 12-14 ounces; now all 3 vegan have their green drink.
Next, we "doctor it up" for the 2 remaining non-vegans who like to add a little yogurt and whey.**

I'll try to get pictures of Momba blended up someday. I forgot!

 

*We started adding calcium (both calcium citrate and calcium with magnesium) to our smoothies because we weren't sure if the girls were getting enough calcium in their diet. It's TOTALLY easy to get enough protein. Calcium is harder to get, especially for growing girls who don't eat enough greens. 

**Yeah, I wish that we had 5 vegans in the house, but the two non-vegans are cute. 

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.

green x 5

Just cook them up... I added onion and sauteed in a little veggie broth.  

I like them with a little soy sauce on them... or leave them plain and put black beans on them. They are super in wraps, too!  They are super with quinoa, brown rice, or whole wheat noodles...  Really, they are just super.

Pictures of Mexican Lasagna

Here's the recipe for Mexican Lasagna.  The recipe (from my happy, healthy friend), recommends that you use canned sweet potatoes if you're in a hurry.  I haven't tried that yet, but when I'm in a hurry, I use these, the frozen in a bag kind (picture below).  I used two bags (20 oz.).  I put them in a bowl and microwaved them for 5-7 minutes (until they were soft) and then put them in the lasagna.

Above, I'm assembling the lasagna with kale.  I had two layers of kale in it.  I microwaved the kale for ~30 seconds before I put it in to make it a little wilt-y.  I added a little more of it after I took the picture to that layer.  I had probably 5-6 cups of it in the whole pan--not a lot, but it's good to add greens to recipes.  It all adds up!  I used all 8 tortillas in the recipe and next time, I think, I'm going to try to make 1/2 the pan with very little tortilla and the other half with normal tortilla.  Or maybe I'll go all crazy and make 1 pan with and 1 pan without--believe it or not, this stuff freezes pretty well.

I use a lot of pico de gallo in my lasagna.  I think I used 3-4 of those  12 oz. containers.  I tend to NOT use all the juice, but to scoop out the chunks.  I think a cooked salsa with a thicker sauce might be nice, but I really like pico de gallo.  (It's scary how much I like it.)

Every time I make this lasagna*, Nick says, "I don't like sweet potatoes, but the sweet and spicy works."  I myself have mixed feelings about sweet potatoes, but this recipe does "work."  Enjoy!



*I've only made it 3 or 4 times.  Someday, he'll probably not say it, and then I'll be sad.  It's pretty cute.

Ridiculously excited

I am ridiculously excited about these two new finds at TJ's!

I like it green and organic!

I found the Kale last weekend and the Power to the Greens this weekend. I don't know how long they've been available, but I didn't notice them until recently. Today, or this weekend, I plan to make mexican lasagna and / or this soup with Kale.  I hope to make both, but we'll see how ambitious I am.

Lunch

 

We went to a VERY yummy vegan restaurant.   This was raw kale, spirulized celery root, and lots of other yummy veggies as a salad.  It had an almond cream dressing on it.  Super yum.

Veggie Soup with Kale

I love Kale... With all my heart.  And it's good for my heart.  And lots of other body parts....

Okay, I'm not a poet so I'll stop there.  I think with a little iteration I could turn that into a nice poem, but not today.  I've got some other things to do!  This is also the second attempt at posting this recipe--remember, yesterday I complained how blogger ate my post.  Cross your fingers that this post sticks.

---

The days are starting to sort of feel like fall. Sort of.  (Never mind that it was in the low 80s on Saturday and the high 70s of Sunday.)  On Sunday, I wanted soup--warm, comforting soup.  I wanted it with lots of green.

I scoured the web and looked at many versions of veggie soup with Kale.  There are lots of similar recipes.  I didn't see anything that was exactly what I was looking for so I made one up.  Here it is:

2 yukon gold potatoes diced (not peeled)
1 large yellow onion diced
2-3 carrots diced
1-3 cloves of garlic diced
1 can of garbanzo beans
1 32-ounce container of veggie broth
~3 cups of water

Combine all of the above in a big stock pan and bring to a boil.  Let it cook at a slow boil for 20-40 minutes or until all the veggies are soft.  (The time it takes to make the veggies soft will depend on the size of the veggies.)

After the veggies are of a good texture add:

~28 ounces of diced tomatoes
another 32-ounce container of veggie broth
salt (if needed see how much is in your tomatoes and broth)
1 zucchini sliced into thin pieces (I sliced thin and then quartered) (peel or not, your preference, I didn't)

Cook for another 5-10 minutes.

Add Kale 3-4 cups chopped with stems removed

You could stop here as it's a delicious very low-fat, no-oil soup.  Or, if you're feeling adventurous you can add 2 links of Italian Vegan Field Roast Sausage chopped into small pieces. (Nick, Nat, and I love this stuff.)

If you choose to add the vegan sausage you will add fat to the soup, but it's delicious!

After you add Kale (and the vegan sausage), cook for another 5-10 minutes.  

Here are the nutrition facts without the vegan sausage.  If you add the sausage you add ~2 grams of fat per serving and ~48 more calories.   (I'm calculating 10 very GENEROUS servings for this recipe, but it might be more like 16 normal sized servings.  I love soup!)

Kid report:
Nat, the vegan who loves veggies, ate the soup.
Kira ate the broth and the potatoes
Tia ate the broth, potatoes, garbanzo beans, vegan sausage, and a few pieces of zucchini.

Yea, I had to try to ladle the soup up with only their preferred veggies.
 
I'll be making this soup again this fall and winter! 

Mexican Sweet Potato Soup

I made this soup for the first time.  (Recipe pasted below.) It was good!  What would I change? Not much.  I'd add Kale, of course!  (Remember, I like it GREEN!)  I did add some kale to my bowl, and YUM! I think I'd also add Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes.  If you scroll down on this post you can read about Eden tomatoes being BPA free.

Oh, on the soup, I didn't saute the veggies.  I just threw everything in the pot and let it cook for a couple of hours.  Next time, I might saute the red peppers or if I were in a hurry, I'd add (jarred) oven roasted red peppers.

So it's been a while since my last post... where did I go and am I back now?  I have been busy getting ready for the fall.  I'll be working again and teaching.  I'm almost ready--kind of, but I don't want summer to end.  My brother is visiting and this coming weekend we have some birthday celebrating to do, so don't expect me back quite yet.  I've so enjoyed my summer off and hanging with the girls.  Thanks to my wonderful husband for encouraging me to take time off. 

And now, Happy Healthy Librarian's Sister's Soup Recipe. 

Serves:  8 (2 cup servings)
Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups cubed sweet potatoes

1 large sweet onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

1 large red pepper, chopped

1 16 oz. jar of salsa (I used pico de gallo, but next time I might use a heartier cooked salsa)

1/2 tablespoon cumin

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

6 cups of low-sodium vegetable broth (use 8 cups if you like a thinner soup)

1/3 cup Better'n Peanut Butter (low-fat), or PB2 equivalent, prepared, or real peanut butter

1 bag of TJ's frozen brown rice, microwaved (2 cups cooked brown rice)
Optional:  Add 1 1/2 cups of frozen roasted corn

Preparation:
Saute all the vegetables, with sweet potatoes for 5-7 minutes, until soft (I skipped this... I microwaved the sweet potatoes and just through everything in the pot and let them simmer for a couple of hours.  I do think softening the pepper a bit more might be good.)

Add salsa, cumin, black beans, & broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes

Add in peanut butter. Whisk well.

Add in rice & cook 2 minutes longer.  (I didn't add rice, but maybe next time.  I prefer kale over rice.)

This is loaded with nutrients!

Other green stuff....

This week has been really busy.  My good intentions for posting a recipe became just that and alas, no recipe. (Also we had a lot of leftovers after our 4th of July celebration so I didn't feel like experimenting any more.  Our refrigerator was full!)

So, as we finish our leftovers, I'll share some of my favorite reusable products: the other green.

These plate / bowl covers are super handy for leftovers.  We use them all the time.  I'm on my second package of them.  We've been using them for a while--6 months?  A year?  I actually have no idea, time is a blur around here!  I bought mine at Target on a whim.  I love them.  I haven't had any break on me, nor have I tossed any, but some disappeared so we needed a second set.

These stainless steel straws are wonderful!  We've been using them for almost a year now; I estimate we've saved about 1200 plastic straws thus far.  We love to drink our green smoothies with these straws (I have some pictures of green smoothies with these straws, but they aren't on my iPhone and I'm too lazy to go download the camera right now.)

I suppose I could give you my favorite green smoothie recipe... hrm... (see below)

One more green product... We use stainless steel water bottles (Kleen Kanteen) all the time.  One day, for some reason, I forgot to have the girls pack their water bottles (and snacks) and we found ourselves out and about and thirsty (and hungry).  (I never forget water bottles and snacks as I've been "packing" for 10 years; I don't know what I was thinking!)

We went to Whole Foods to find some sustenance.  While we were there, I was delighted to find a way to buy a bottle of water in a reusable stainless steel water bottle.  While I wouldn't want to buy a new stainless steel water bottle all the time, it was great to buy one that day.  They aren't that expensive ($7) and for us, it's good to have an extra water bottle around the house in case we have company or in case someone loses their water bottle.  

Okay, here's how we make the green smoothie that we have every night as our appetizer before dinner... (If we're going out, I make it in the afternoon and give it to the girls before we go.)

3 - 4 cups frozen kale (or spinach)*
1 or 2 bananas
1 (or 2 if you don't use the Red Powder) 10-ounce package of frozen strawberries (or blueberries or a mixture of berries)
10 ounces of soy milk
(optional) A couple of scoops of Trader Joe's Super Red Powder (or a few scoops of Amazing Meal)
enough water / ice to make it blend well and make it a little less kale-intense.  It will still be thick.

Makes enough for 5 smoothies about 12 ounces (because of the ice/water)

We use our Vitamix to blend it and YUM!  If your kids won't eat veggies, try green smoothies. Here's hoping there's more time for blogging this week!

 

Look, a green smoothie with the stainless steel straw... Love the green!

*Note, we started with a few handfuls and worked our way up to very green smoothies.  I like kale better than spinach.  It's a stronger flavor, but it's more nutritious than spinach--you can google kale versus spinach and see why if you're curious.  Of course, if I don't have kale, I gladly turn to spinach, and for variety, I use spinach every now and then.

Black bean and kale burgers with a big KICK

I'll tell you about the kickin' cookin' in a minute. If you want to skip the recipe and go to the story, go down to the line divider. Otherwise, keep reading... Saturday night: I was making an approximation of this recipe from "Oh she glows," a great food / vegan blog. (And she originally got it here.)

I say an approximation of the recipe because I never follow recipes. I always adapt or change based on taste preferences, to add in extra veggies, or reduce the fat. I'm putting the version I made, below. (I increased the spices by quite a bit. Plus, I added kale for some greens, flax (for omega-3s), removed the oil, and added more oats because the burger mix, with my addition of kale, was way too moist.)

1-2 carrots
1 cup (frozen) kale
1-2 garlic clove(s)
1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tsp coriander
1 chia egg (1 tbsp ground chia + 3 tbsp warm water, mixed well)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 - 1 tsp sea salt
2 cans black beans (rinsed and drained)
1 cup dry rolled oats
1/3 cup ground flaxmeal


Directions: Preheat oven to somewhere between 300 and 350F*. Add carrots, garlic, and kale to the food processor and process until finely minced. Next, add pepitas and spices to your food processor and process until close to the texture you desire. (If you want the pepitas more chunky, then add these later.) Add 3/4 of the beans, the chia egg, 1/2 the oats, and the flax. Process until lightly mixed.

Spoon the mixture from the food processor into a mixing bowl and mix in (by hand) the rest of the beans and oats. Form into 10-12 good-sized patties. Place patties on a lined baking pan. (I use a silicone mat and I love my silicone baking mat. The one I linked to is close to what I have, but I can't find the particular mat I have.)

Bake the burgers at 325F for 30-40 minutes, turning once very carefully after 15-20 minutes (Note: The patties are fragile, but I think the addition of flax and extra oats makes these burgers more able to stick together than the original version.) Hint, use a metal spatula for getting underneath them to flip them.

(Note from the other blog, I haven't tried it. If you want to grill these, pre-bake them for 20-30 minutes at 300F, then throw them on the grill to get a little extra cooking / browning.)

*My notes: I baked these in my convection oven at 300. It seems to take between 30 and 40 minutes to get these done depending on the moisture content of the carrot(s) and kale.

---

Okay, so now I'll tell you about how things got really hot! It took me two attempts to make the burgers.

First time around, I was almost done mixing things. I had added the beans before I added all the spices and was working on putting in the remaining spices. I grabbed (what I thought was) the chili powder and poured in a big heaping tablespoon, maybe closer to 2. I started the food processor and went to search for the coriander.

As I found the coriander, I thought, "Ruh-oh, I think I put in cayenne pepper instead of chili powder." With trepidation, I tasted the mixture...whew, it's okay, 1,2,3 WHOA BABY! Nope, it was cayenne that I poured into the recipe in mass quantities. How did I manage that?

I stood and wrung my hands for a few seconds; I was very upset for having wasted so much food. I tried to think creatively so I decided to take most (3/4s) of the mixture out from the food processor to see if it would work as a bean dip. My oldest daughter, tried it and deemed it edible, nay really good, but with a big kick. (She thought it was hilarious that I said WHOA BABY when I tried it.) All my girls liked it as a bean dip and they ate quite a bit of it. They amused themselves with eating the dip and then trying to cool their mouths down. Oh to be 6, 7, and 10, again. Heh.

I was a little happier and I decided that the "accident" would work well spread on tortillas that could be stuffed with broccoli or spinach. Whew! The food was not wasted! (I can't wait to try this spread on tortillas! I'll let you know how it is.) (I love vegan cooking because you can eat stuff RAW!)

After pulling 3/4s of the burger mix out, adding in new ingredients, and re-making the burger mix, I still had really spicy burgers, but at least this time they weren't too hot to handle. These burgers are really good when you put in the right amount of cayenne. To end this really long post, here's a picture of the two jars of spice that managed to confuse me. Don't make the same mistake as me!

How embarrassing! At least it turned out tasty!

Approximate calories and nutrition analysis added 9/2017