Kale Slaw

I have an overabundance of greens in my garden this year! 3 kinds of kale, collards, and some beautiful chard. Last year I got so sick of greens sauteed with onions and garlic so I knew that if I couldn't come up with some new and unique ways to use them I would end up composting more greens than I ate. I tried kale slaw for the first time a year or so ago when I saw it in the deli case of my favorite local co-op, Food Front. I did an internet search to find some recipes and ended up combining a few to get the final recipe I made today. It is sooooo tasty!
A lot of the recipes called for raw kale but since some of mine is a little bit passed the tender stage I thought a quick steam might help get rid of any excess bitterness.

This makes 4 large servings and 1 serving gives you well over 100% of the daily recommended amount of Vitamins C, A, and K. Its so good and good for you!

Ingredients:

1 big pile of kale (roughly equivalent to 2 bunches from the store), rinsed well, stems removed
2 large carrots, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup toasted cashews
1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds
Dressing (see below)

Steam the kale for 2 minutes, then cool and chop into bite sized pieces. Combine kale, carrots, cashews, seeds and dressing.

for dressing:
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 - 1 T fresh ginger, minced
1/2 T sesame oil
1/2 T tamari
juice of 1 lemon
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 t sugar
1/4 C Vegenaise (or other mayo of choice)


Doesn't this look so good?

Cashew Ginger Tofu

This is my current favorite way to eat tofu. I found the recipe while flipping through a borrowed copy of eat, drink & be vegan and happened to have all the ingredients on hand. It is sooooo good! I'm surprised that I found something so soon that really gives my other fave (BBQ Tofu) a run for its money but this definitely does. Here is the link to the recipe on the author's site. I served it alongside another recipe from the same book, cinnamon lime quinoa with apricots & almonds, and also had a helping of sauteed kale. The quinoa was a good dish also, but not nearly as dreamy as the tofu.

Trifle with berries and vanilla custard

I was looking at some of the gorgeous food pictures on 101 cookbooks and followed a link to this blog, Whole Food Cooking, which is written by Australian cookbook author and real food activist, Jude Blereau. I love all things pudding-like so when I saw this recipe for vegan custard I had to try it. I've changed just a few things in the ingredient list because I believe some common ingredients in Australia are different than here in the States. Also a few quantities were metric so I changed them to standard.

For the vanilla custard:

1 cup blanched almonds

1 1/2 teaspoons agar powder

scant 1/3 cup maple syrup

1 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract)

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup coconut milk

Put the blanched almonds and 3 1/2 cups water in a blender. Blend well. Peg 4 layers of muslin onto a jug or bowl and pour the almond mix through. Squeeze out the remaining milk from the muslin. This should give you 3 cups almond milk. ( just use my nut milk bag. You could probably use store bought unsweetened almond milk in a pinch but fresh is definitely better!)

Measure out 2 1/2 cups almond milk into a saucepan and add the maple syrup. Whisk in the agar to stop it clumping. Lay the vanilla bean flat on a chopping board and, using a small sharp knife, cut down the length of the bean. Open the bean up and flatten to collect the seeds - add these to the milk. (Or, just add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste)

Stir together and bring very gently to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Stir frequently as agar loves to sink to the bottom and stick as it dissolves.

Add the cornstarch to a small bowl and mix to a slurry with 1/4 cup almond milk. When the agar is dissolved, remove the milk mix from the stove and whisk in the almond milk and cornstarch. Return to the stove and stir constantly as it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and pour into a clean bowl. Place some parchment paper on the surface and refrigerate until cool.

When set, put what will be a fairly solid mix back in the blender. To this, add the remaining almond milk and coconut milk. Blend for a few minutes until silky smooth.

Now, to make this into a trifle all you have to do is layer it with plain cake of some kind and fresh or thawed berries or other fruit that would go well. Some people drizzle different liquors on to the cake layers but I never have them on hand and don't like buying something for just one recipe. It can go from economical to expensive really quickly! I'm sure the custard could be eaten as is too. It's really delicious.

I am going to make mine with thawed strawberries and this yellow cake recipe off of recipezaar. I'll post a picture later when I make it.

Happy Belly Baked Polenta

I pulled two leeks out of my otherwise empty garden this morning and deciding what to do with them led me to make this soothing baked polenta dish. There are so many ways this recipe could be varied so I'm going to include all the ingredients I think you could put in it.

First, make the polenta (recipe to come soon!). Pour your hot polenta into an oiled pie pan or other ovensafe dish. If you want to make this even quicker, you could also use one of those tubes of prepared polenta. Just slice it into rounds and cover the bottom of your baking dish with them. Set the polenta to the side and let it firm up while you prepare your toppings.

Next choose your toppings. I'd recommend picking at least 4 of these in some combination that sounds good to you.

a couple cloves of garlic, minced

2 thinly sliced leeks (well washed, please)

1 small carrot, sliced into thin rounds

3 or 4 collard leaves, sliced into thin ribbons (or chard, kale, spinach, etc...)

*4 or 5 canned artichoke hearts, halved

*1/2 cup chopped olives

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped broccoli

*1 cup garbanzo or white beans

a link of veggie sausage, thinly sliced or chopped

You also want a jar of your favorite marinara sauce, about 1 1/2 to 2 cups worth.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add any ingredients you've chosen, unless they have a start beside them which means you want to wait to add these til just before you put it all in the oven. Saute your toppings for about 10 minutes, until nicely softened and browned. Now you can stir in any starred items and cook for another minute or so, just to heat them through.

Pour all of this evenly over your polenta. Pour the marinara sauce over everything.

Cover your dish with a lid or aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.


Sloppy but good. : )

Indian Dinner

I found a new vegan website called paku paku that's full of delicious sounding ethnic recipes and I finally got around to trying one tonight for Dal, which you may know is an Indian lentil dish. Its in the bottom right hand corner of the picture above, cozying up to some pear chutney baked tofu and a rice dish from Passionate Vegetarian called Katherine's Ghee Rice with Cashews and Melting Onions. That's a long way of saying rice with too much butter. I don't know how it would taste with earth balance or oil in place of the butter but if I try it out I will let you know. The tofu was my own creation and I think it could use a little work before I put it on the blog but the Dal was quite tasty and I'd like to share it with you.

The recipe on paku paku didn't have exact measurements so I wrote down the amounts I used.

Dal

Ingredients:

1 cup red lentils (I'm sure brown would be fine too)
3 cups water
1/4 t. turmeric
1 t. fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup finely chopped collard greens
1 roma tomato, chopped
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. garam masala
chopped cilantro, optional

First put the lentils in a large pan with the water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer and stir in the turmeric. Continue simmering and stirring occasionally until the lentils begin to absorb most of the water, about 15 minutes.
Add the ginger and collards. Continue stirring and simmering for another 15 minutes or so, until the lentils are done to your liking. If they begin to dry up you can add more water.
When lentils are pretty much done, add the tomatoes, salt, and garam masala. Simmer for another few minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in cilantro, if using. Serve as a stew, over rice, or alone. Makes about 3 servings.

No more fake cheese

After making two more block cheese recipes from the Uncheese book and having them both turn out pretty inedible I have decided that there is no room in my life for fake block-style cheese. I've had much better luck with cheesy dips and sauces, and from now on I swear I will never make another solid fake cheese.

I nearly ruined a perfectly tasty pizza tonight with the "provolone" I made a few days ago. Luckily it never melted so I scraped it off. It even smelled awful!

So make this pizza, but skip the fake cheese. It doesn't need it anyway.

Broccoli, Kalamata, & Almond Pizza

First the pizza dough:

I use a recipe off of Allrecipes that I love. It's technically a recipe for foccaccia but it works fine for pizza dough.

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I use spelt sometimes, whole wheat sometimes)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 pinch ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, basil and black pepper. Mix in the vegetable oil and water.
When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Punch dough down; place on greased baking sheet. Pat into a 1/2 inch thick circle. Add toppings.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Toppings:

small handful chopped almonds

1 to 1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli

15 oz. can diced tomatoes, well drained

small handful diced kalamata olives

minced garlic

The Ultimate Uncheese

Swiss Cheese...sort of

Peanut Butter Fudge Pie...Yum!

How could one resist checking out a book called the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook? Cheese is one of my weaknesses...its one of the foods I can't seem to give up no matter how hard I try. So, after having such great success with the smoky cheese dip I was really excited when I found this book. So far I've made 3 recipes out of it: Swizz Cheez* and Peanut Butter Fudge Pie with a Granola Nut Crust. I was particularly excited to try the cheese recipe because I've never tried to make a vegan block cheese, nor do I know anyone who has. Unfortunately I felt that the final product was a bit too lemon-y. It definitely resembles swiss cheese in flavor but the lemon juice seemed a bit strong. The pie was much tastier and the crust was even better than the filling in my opinion.

*I can't stand it when vegan dairy & meat substitute recipes have such cutesy titles. I realize its not real cheese but come on, did you fail 5th grade grammar?