Easy as (Shepherd's) Pie!

Well, it has been awhile.  But, as one of my favorite running quotes says, 'forward is a pace'.  That's right.  If you're moving, if you keep getting up and trying again, you're doing ten times better than someone still sitting on the couch.  So, I've been slacking for the past month.  I have discovered many great foods, fun recipes to cook, and even gotten back into a (fairly) normal running routine - been too busy out living life to sit down and write about it.

But I'm back!  I found one that was too great to not write down, because if I don't I'll surely forget it.  And since this recipe strays quite far from my norm of sauteed vegetables in some sort of sauce (ok, I still sautee the veggies.... but it's still different I swear!!), it's worth making note of.

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups lentils

1 1/2 cups rice

2 large sweet potatoes

4 plum tomatoes

1 large onion

1 red bell pepper

1/2 cup frozen/fresh corn kernels

1/2 cup chopped spinach

(vary veggies as per your preference, this was a good taste combo for me)

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Salt to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

This recipe is made of 3 separate components that are combined at the end.

1. First, we will get the rice and lentils cooking as this takes about 30-45 minutes.  If using a rice cooker, simply add the rice and lentils, about 4 cups water, garlic powder and a dash of salt and cook on the 'white rice' setting.  If not, then cook same ingredients in a medium pot, starting out at a boil and then bringing to low heat until rice and lentils are soft.

2.  While the rice and lentils are cooking, peel and chop the sweet potatoes.  The only reason for cutting them into pieces is so that they cook faster - the smaller the pieces, the quicker they will cook.  Place in a large pot with water and boil over medium-high heat until soft.

3.  Now that you have the rice/lentils and the sweet potatoes cooking, cut up your other veggies.  In a large pan, add your olive oil and place over medium heat.  Make sure that this pan will be large enough to eventually hold your rice/lentil mix as well.  Add your chopped veggies one by one, starting with the onion.  Add your pepper, your tomatoes, your corn, and your spinach.  Cook over low-medium heat until veggies are soft (~20 minutes).

To the veggie mix, add your spices.  I found that cumin, black pepper, and salt, were all that I needed, but feel free to experiment.  Also, be sure to add that nutritional yeast to get your B12.

4.  If you did things in this order, they should start all being 'done' around the same time!  Heat your oven to 375 degrees, and let's start the combining!

First, you'll take the rice/lentil mix and add it to the pan with all of your veggies.  Stir so that the veggies and carbs are nicely mixed.

Then, spread this mix evenly in the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

Strain your sweet potatoes and mash them up, then spread in an even coat over your lentil/veggie mix.

Place in the oven for about 20 minutes, and voila, shepherd's pie!

(Didn't get an 'after' shot of this one, but trust me, a slice of this pie is scrumptious!)

Peanut Butter Soup

I got a special request today for lunch - peanut butter soup!  If you've been reading since the beginning, you'll recall that my first recipe was a combination of peanut butter soup and veggie stew.  Today I want to show you the soup all on its own - a Ghanian favorite done up the vegan way!

Peanut Butter Soup

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
Garlic (fresh or puree)
5 cups water
1 - 1.5 cups peanut butter

Vegetables:
2 onions
peppers (2 bell, 1 habanero for spice)
2 cups baby carrots
2 big kale leaves
about 2 inches of a ginger root
Tomato Sauce (1 can) or Tomatoes (3 large)

Spices:
1 tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1 tsp Turmeric
Salt for flavor

Preparation:

1.  Add about 2 Tbsp olive oil to large pot.  Add garlic and 1 chopped onion, allowing to cook over medium heat until onions are clear.

(Choose a large pot, we will be adding everything to this one!)

2.  While the onions are cooking, put all of the veggies in a blender.  You can see here the full leaves of kale, carrots, a piece of peeled ginger, peppers, and a chopped onion. You can add any veggies that you like, but be careful of those with an overpowering taste. This is the first time I've added kale, and any more than 2 leaves would have been too much!  Also, control the spiciness of the soup by adding more or less habanero pepper.  I have found that one is good for me.  Add 2 cups of water, and blend !

3.  When the onions are clear and the veggies blended, pour the veggie mix into your pot.  Add an additional 2-3 cups of water so that you have a thin broth. 

 4.  Add your tomato sauce to the broth, or puree your full tomatoes and add to the broth.  Cook over medium heat, so that you have a low boil, for about 20 minutes.







5.  While your broth is cooking, feel free to add your spices.  This is a small lineup due to the flavor added by all those veggies!  Hold off on adding too much salt, you can add more at the end if desired.  I have also experimented here with cumin/coriander to give more of an Indian taste, or red/black pepper to add more spice!

 6. The last thing to add is the peanut butter.  Start out with one large scoop.  You will probably end up using 1 -1.5 cups, depending on how creamy you prefer and how strong of a vegetable taste that you like.  This recipe serves at least 8-10, so you'll probably end up with less pb in your bowl than you'd put on a sandwich! Continue on a low boil for half an hour, so that your soup becomes nice and thick.

7.  Finally, add in any salt/spices to get the taste just right!

Optional : Pre-boiled potatoes or extra cooked veggies are a good addition at this point for a chunky soup.




Enjoy!  Pictured here is a bowl of peanut butter soup served with a scoop of wild grain rice.

Note: A few changes have been made to this recipe as it was passed on to me, with the goal of adding more nutrition and removing any non-vegan elements.  The first, and most notable to someone familiar, will be that this soup is meat-free.  Traditionally, peanut butter soup is cooked with goat meat and/or beef.  Mushrooms are also sometimes used, I have not yet given this a go but found that potatoes do make a nice substitute.

Secondly, since we tend to have processed peanut butter here instead of raw ground nut or peanut paste, some steps are skipped.  I have not found a need to boil the peanut butter on its own before adding it to the soup, but this is also suggested in original recipes.

Finally, I have (of course!) added more vegetables.  Ginger, carrot, pepper, onion are the most common.  Kale is something that I added on my own, because kale just makes everything better!

I hope that you find this vegan rendition to be a healthy version of the traditional recipe!  I am already on my second bowl.....

Granola with a Twist

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Everything!

What a busy month this has been - ironically, because it is the first year that I DIDN'T have crazy travel plans, lots of relatives to go visit, and a huge shopping list!  In fact, this was the first year that I had Christmas at my house, for only a few friends and family.

For such a small group, and since we couldn't spend too much time at the house due to a cat allergy in the midst of us, I decided to make some homemade munchies instead of a large brunch.  Something simple to snack on while presents were being opened, cats were being chased (only by the five year old, I promise), and to hold us over until the afternoon feast.  The following recipe was such a huge success that it has become a breakfast staple for the past week, and it offers such opportunity for variety that I look forward to many new combinations!

Sweet & Savory Granola

Ingredients:

Grain/Nut Mix

4 cups Oats

2 cups Almonds (plus any other nuts of preference : walnuts, peanuts, pecans, chocolate covered almonds...)

2 cup Quinoa (pre-cooked, 3/4 cup quinoa with 1 1/2 cup water)

2 Tbsp Chia Seeds

Flavorings

~ 1/2 cup Maple Syrup

~ 2 tsp Hot sauce

~ 1 tsp lemon juice

~ 1/2 cup olive oil

~ 1 tsp salt

Dried Fruit

dried apricots

raisins

dried cranberries

(.. plus any other fruit of preference)

Preparation: 

Half Hour Before:

Prepare Quinoa using either rice cooker or stove top. For stove top, cook 3/4 cup grain with 1 1/2 cup water over low heat until soft.  For rice cooker, use the 'white rice' setting.

1. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, cooked quinoa, chia seeds, and nuts.  Almonds are great, but this flavor combination lends itself very well to adding other nuts like peanuts, pecans  - I even added some of the cocoa-covered almonds for variety!

Preheat oven to 380!

2. Time to add the wet ingredients.  Notice that measurements for these are approximate - you should aim for a sticky consistency without going too far and ending up like cookie batter. You can also add more/less of the spicy, salty, sweet, and sour, according to your individual taste!

First, add your 1/2 cup olive oil.  You can replace this with peanut oil, canola oil, whatever you have on hand - in combination with your nuts and seeds, this is your healthy fat for the meal.







Next, add your 'sweet' in the form of maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey (though honey would not technically be vegan).  Since the oil and syrup will make up a majority of the wet ingredients, you may have to add more here until the oats/nuts are coated. 

Your 'spicy' will come from hot sauce, alternatively tabasco sauce or hot pepper.  My first granola recipe was sweet, but I've grown to like this savory version so much better!

Finally, add your lemon juice (sour) and salt (salty :) ), tasting to make sure that you have the perfect balance.

Stir everything up, and your granola is ready for the oven!

Spread your granola evenly on a 9x13 inch pan.  Cook for about half hour on 380 (because 375 is just way too standard), stirring every 10 minutes.

3. While the granola is cooking, prepare your dried fruit to be added once it comes out of the oven.  I choose to use dried apricots, raisins, and craisins, but the choice is yours!

Chop the fruit into small pieces.  In my case, only the apricots needed chopping!

When your granola comes out of the oven, leave it to cool for about 10 minutes.  Try not to eat it all here before it's done!  (The whole house should smell divine at this point, it is hard to resist)

Stir together your granola and the dried fruit, deliciousness complete!

Hidden Ingredients - Beware!

So a few days after I put up my recipe for Vegan Stroganoff, one of my friends brought to my attention that Worcestershire sauce isn't actually vegan.  It's not even vegetarian...

Why, you ask??

It contains anchovies!

WHAT??  For someone who tries very hard to 'obey the rules,' it's quite a revelation when you realize that you made a mistake.  And not even the good kind of mistake, where you choose to indulge in, say, mom's delicious homemade cookies, or a frozen treat on the first day Dairy Queen is open.  Nope, this is the completely ignorant choice that you make because you don't know any better.  This is a sauce that's been in our fridge for years and years -  who would have guessed :).

Given that circumstance, I don't really beat myself up over it too much.  What I do choose to do is make everyone else aware, so that they don't mistakenly make the same mistakes I do!

Oh, and take the Worcestershire sauce right out of my fridge.  I have done some googling and come up with plenty of good alternatives to the typical sauce that you'll find in the grocery store.

Annie's Naturals Vegan Worcestershire Sauce
The Wizard's Organic Vegan Worcestershire Sauce


... or, you can make your own with the following recipe :

http://www.marthastewart.com/258132/homemade-vegan-worcestershire-sauce

Looking through the list of ingredients, I realized that I can just augment the portions of some of them in my recipes instead of making the sauce ahead of time.  For the stroganoff for example,  I'll add some extra soy sauce, garlic, and onion, in addition to adding some apple cider vinegar.  Easy and now vegan!

A Vegan Thanksgiving

Once the holidays start rolling around, it's inevitable.  Especially Thanksgiving.  The questions are bound to start coming....What do you EAT for dinner?  Do you make a Tofu Turkey?  Are all of your relatives vegan too?

And sometimes, traveling for Thanksgiving is a bit tricky.  It's no fun to have to turn down delicious appetizers, full plates of yummy food, sweet desserts.  It's also kinda rude to not eat what the host prepares.  I tend to fall on the side of switching to vegetarian for the day - still passing on the meat, but being ok with a little bit of dairy or cheese - rather than having to say no to everything and causing hard feelings!

But this year was my first year hosting Thanksgiving since become vegan.  And not only was it way simpler than trying to prepare a traditional dinner, but everyone loved it!  I like to think of my first vegan thanksgiving as all of the good of the traditional, with a little bit of modern and healthy mixed in.

Menu

Rosemary Green Beans

Mashed Potatoes

Stroganoff

Cranberry Sauce

Check out my previous post for a recipe for vegan stroganoff - a nice creamy dish with lots of onions and mushrooms!

Mashed potatoes were made with a few tablespoons of Earth Balance and some of the vegan sour cream left over from the stroganoff, as well as garlic powder.

Our Thanksgiving table was beautiful!  Could have used some more veggies I suppose - but what the heck, it's a holiday! 

For dessert, some out-of-the-box brownies! Enhanced with a sour cream swirl (vegan sour cream, brown sugar, and about 1/4 cup of the brownie mix), that makes them nice and moist and just a tad healthier :)

With the cooking made so simple, it was a wonderful day with the family!  Another day to be thankful for :).

Can I Call it Stroganoff?

Yesterday was kind of a special day at work.  We had our first annual Harvestfest, one of those potluck-type events that comes in abundance around the holidays.  Those events that you ponder over for a few minutes, wondering exactly how 'all-in' you should go.  Should you dig up a nice fancy recipe designed to impress, or take it easy and pick up something on the way?

This time around I decided to use our potluck as an opportunity to experiment with one of my mother's favorite recipes - perhaps one of the most non-vegan recipes that she made, but also one of my favorites.  Yup, the one that got requested every birthday from elementary school up through college.

Beef stroganoff.  I don't claim to know any of the history behind the dish - wikipedia tells me that it is a Russian dish.  (I didn't know I had any Russian in me, perhaps I should start using family recipes to trace back my ethnicity!)  More specifically, a Russian dish made of sauteed pieces of beef in a creamy sour cream sauce.

Beef.  

Cream.  

Very, very non-vegan!

However, I got to thinking that the beef is not at all what I love about this dish.  In fact, even at a young age I'd pick out the more sinewy pieces as I did not like the texture.  What I did love was the amazing flavor from the onions, mushrooms, and spices, that were used to enhance the dish.  I also loved the creamy sauce, and thought that there must be a way to reproduce this without having to use dairy.

Below is the recipe that I used for our potluck, and I'll have to say that I got amazing reviews!  (I smile inside when even those omnivores among us say that one of the vegan dishes was their favorite :) ).  I used all 'real' ingredients- meaning no substitute things, no fake meat, etc- with the exception of vegan sour cream.  In the future I think I will try to come up with a better substitute, but the brand I found was a surprisingly good rendition of sour cream.  Also, quick and easy.

I hope that you find this as enjoyable as I did!

(Note : I was in mass production mode.  You probably want to cut this down to half for a family-sized dish.)

Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff

Ingredients:  

3 Tbsp oil

2 Tbsp garlic

2 large onions

4 10-oz cartons mushrooms (your choice of variety)

2 peppers (I used one red bell, one large italian green)

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/8 cup VEGAN worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup kitchen bouquet (or gravy master)

1 Tbsp black pepper

3 Tbsp flour

8 oz. vegan sour cream

Directions:

1. Same as usual :).  For those of you who have been reading my recipes, you know that they pretty much all start out the same way!  

In a large saucepan, add enough oil to thinly cover the bottom of the pan.  Add garlic and chopped onion. Cook over medium heat until onions are clear.

2. While onions are cooking, chop up the mushrooms and peppers.  Stroganoff doesn't usually have peppers - my replacement for the beef was to use extra onions/mushrooms and add a few peppers for variety.  You will notice however that mushrooms become the featured element.

Add the mushrooms and peppers to the pan, in addition to the black pepper.  Continue to allow the vegetables to cook over medium heat until they become soft (about 20 minutes).  If you find that your dish is more watery, you will choose to leave the pan uncovered.  If not, then cover the pan so that the veggies cook faster and maintain the liquid.

3.  Next, add the soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, and kitchen bouquet.  Notice that the kitchen bouquet is what gives the dish its dark brown coloring.  Stir and continue cooking over medium heat.

4.  At this point, because of all of the vegetables and sauces you added, you will probably have a good amount of liquid in your pan.  In order to make a nice thick sauce for the dish, we add a small amount of flour.  Stir in the flour, turn heat down to low, and allow to simmer until the sauce becomes nice and thick.  At this point, it's also a good idea to turn your oven on (375) to start heating up.

5.  Once the sauce has become thick, remove your pan from the heat.  Stir in your sour cream (this is about half of a 16-oz container), or 2 'dollops'.  The color should turn from dark brown to a light brown color.  You can add more or less sour cream at this point depending on desired creaminess.




6.  I forgot to take a picture of the last step!  After adding the sour cream, pour your stroganoff into a baking dish (I used 13x9 for this larger quantity).  Bake at 375 for about half hour, stirring every 10 minutes.  The goal of this step is to further thicken the consistency.  I have found that without the meat though, this step can be totally skipped if you are short on time and/or enjoy the more creamy texture.

7.  Time to eat!  My mom always used to serve this dish with potatoes and cranberry sauce, so I admit I am partial to that solution.  However, wikipedia also tells me that the more common preparation involves serving over noodles.  Either way, delicious!  Enjoy!





Here's some of the less common ingredients that I used, kitchen bouquet and vegan sour cream :

A Tribute to Teff

Let's play the guessing game!

Is Teff a fabric?  The stuffing that goes in pillows?  A smug remark? The noise one makes when coughing?

How about the tiniest grain in the WORLD! Thanks to a friend that I met at NYC, who came all the way from Israel to run the race, I have recently been enlightened about this powerhouse of nutrition.  Food is just one of those things you get to talking about when waiting 5 hours for a race to start :).

Packing the Nutrients

From my quick reading of labels, I learned that Teff is very high in protein, as well as phosphorous, fiber, calcium, and iron.  For the vegan diet, that is good, good, and great! This whole grain is an excellent plant-based source of protein (who says you can't get protein from plants !?)  The high iron content is crucial, because it can be tricky to get enough iron on a vegan diet.   Not impossible, but having enough fresh greens and whole grain is necessary!

Here's a link to the brand of Teff that I purchased, for your own nutritional analysis :

http://www.bobsredmill.com/whole-grain-teff.html

Preparation

The second awesome thing about Teff is that it's super easy to prepare!  I chose a breakfast-oriented preparation, but it also can be eaten as a side for lunch dinner.

Cooking the grain is very similar to how you'd make oatmeal.  There is a simple recipe on the side of the bag that I followed, making substitutes where necessary.



Teff Porridge with Dates and Honey:

(Kristen's Vegan Version)

1 cup Teff
1 Tbsp Earth Balance
1/4 tsp ground Cloves
3 cups water
3/4 cup prunes/raisins/dates
1/3 tsp sea salt
3 Tbsp agave nectar / syrup
1/4 cup walnuts
Soy/Almond milk (optional)

Heat a saucepan over medium heat, add teff grains and toast 3-6 minutes.  When grains begin to pop, add water, Earth Balance, and cloves. Stir.  Bring to gentle boil, cover and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

Stir in the dried fruit, salt, and agave nectar.  Cover and continue cooking until grains are soft, about 5-10 more minutes. Add more water if porridge becomes too thick.

Serve topped with walnuts and/or almond/soy milk.

Enjoy!