Tag Archives: vegan

Grilled Pineapple Fried Rice

2

This rice dish was something I was able to throw together one night, using items I had on hand.  Love it when that happens.

The tofu I used was a packaged, Thai marinated flavor.  Feel free to use any flavor you like, or bake your own.  I was on a mission to make this dish as quick as possible so I used the pre-baked kind.  Nice and easy.

Also, in the spirit of ease and convenience, I used the frozen brown rice you can find at almost any grocery store these days, including Costco.  I separately microwaved 2 bags, and spread the warmed rice out on a large plate in a thin layer to cool.  This is important as the rice can get gooey and clumpy when added to the pan with the other ingredients if not cooled, and the grains somewhat separated.

Make sure to have, as they say in cooking school, your ‘mise en place’ ready (i.e. everything prepared and measured, ready to throw in the pan) as this dish is completed rather quickly.  I served steamed Chinese broccoli alongside this dish.  🙂

Potato and Cauliflower Samosa Patties

Reply


If you’ve ever eaten a samosa at an Indian restaurant (or Whole Foods salad bar for that matter), you know those delectable little things are deep fried.  These patties have that mouth-watering samosa flavor, without all the fat and flour.

This recipe is adapted from Rouxbe, the on-line plant-based culinary school I’m attending. The first time I made these I followed the recipe to the letter but felt they could be improved and made to be lower in fat.  The family actually preferred my version.  Score!

Keep in mind the heat of these will depend on how much of and the type of curry powder you use.  I’m a total wimp when it comes to spice so I only used 1 TBS curry powder (half Penzey Sweet Curry Powder and half Madras Curry Powder).  Use more, or some cayenne, if you like the heat.  They have tons of flavor regardless.  Enjoy!!

Dragon Fruit Delight

Reply

So, I took a food photography class (http://www.mdrphotographyclasses.com) last weekend in LA and it was awesome.  I’m trying to be better about not just using my cell phone to take pics of my culinary creations.  I mean, the phone takes great pics and all, but it’s time to get real and ‘master’ that fancy camera that has been collecting dust in my closet.  I love photography – the creative part.  The technical aspect is a whole different animal, one I’m committed to not being intimidated by, moving forward.  Anyway, in class we had to take pics of food (duh) and I chose to capture dragon fruit.  If you’ve never seen it, it’s a mixture of scary and insanely beautiful, inside and out.  My instructor kindly gave me some to take home and challenged me to come up with a way to prepare and eat the lovely fruit.  So, I did.  It’s very simple, with only a few ingredients, but it’s delicious.

Frieda’s is an exotic fruit distributor (they kindly donated the fruit for the class) running a campaign right now called #FearNoFruit.  I love that!  The challenge is to eat a different, scary, obscure fruit each day.  If you aren’t able to locate Frieda’s produce in your store, speak to your retailer’s produce manager and ask for Frieda’s products by name.  If that doesn’t work, visit www.friedas.com.  The site is also a great resource for funny and informative how-to videos if, for example, you have no idea what to do with a raw artichoke.

Now go eat something beautiful!

Lemon-Tahini Dressing

Reply

It’s been a long time since I posted a recipe! Not that I haven’t been creating in the kitchen – I’m always doing that.  Just life.  You know how it is.  Anyway, I love tahini dressings but they are usually so high in fat.  Tahini, or sesame seed paste, is high in fat of course because seeds are high in fat.  Tahini, and other seeds and seed pates are very healthy but can easily be overeaten.  However, there is a way to use tahini in dressing, still get that flavor, and cut the fat.  The secret is in the BEANS.  Yes, beans.  They not only help cut the fat, they add creaminess, body, nutrients, fiber and protein.

I made this dressing with a salad in mind, but I ended up pouring some over my steamed kale and sweet potato, and it was tasty!  You can use any kind of soft, white bean.  I had made my own flageolet beans the day before because I like to have a batch on hand, but you can use cannellini, great northern, etc.  If you use canned be sure to rinse and drain them.  NOTE: I get a lot of my dried beans from Rancho Gordo. They sell the BEST heirloom beans!  You can purchase from their website at ranchogordo.com.

Chickpea Curry Lettuce Wraps with Tamari-Lime Sliced Almonds

Reply

If you’ve ever made my Mock Chicken Salad you’ll already have an idea of how this dish is made – it’s the same process.  I set out to make the Mock Chicken Salad but I was feeling creative and wanted to change it up significantly.  I absolutely LOVE what I ended up with. SO delicious.  And, it’s really easy to make!! No cooking required for the filling.  Though, if you would like it warm and/or find raw celery and onion too crunchy or strong, feel free to sauté those first.  I made these for lunch on a fairly warm day but I think the warm/cooked filling would be nice on a chilly day or at dinner.  It’s up to you! Experiment….I did!

Feel free to use this filling for a sandwich instead of lettuce wraps.

They are only a garnish, so a small amount is used, but the Tamari-Lime Sliced Almonds are AMAZING here.

Smokey Black Bean Bisque from Chef Del’s “Better Than Vegan” AND Cookbook Giveaway!

Reply

Imagine being vegan and weighing nearly 500 lbs.  Seems impossible doesn’t it? Most people associate vegan with healthy.  For many that is the case, but the opposite is also true.  Potato chips? Vegan.  French fries?  Vegan.  Soda? Vegan. Vegetable oils? Vegan. See where I’m going with this?  Vegan (the absence of animal foods) is only healthy when the diet is comprised of whole, low-fat, plant foods.  Vegan junk food is how you get sick and in Del’s case, to 475 pounds!  This is the meaning of the title of Del’s new cookbook, Better Than Vegan.  Being vegan isn’t enough if you want to achieve optimal health and weight…you must be Better Than Vegan!  Del has managed to drop nearly all of his extra weight but doing just that!

RECIPE REVIEW:

Del’s recipes are easy to follow and execute, and of course they’re delicious! To give you an idea of how tasty and easy his recipes are, I made the Smokey Black Bean Bisque (recipe below) and it was phenomenal! Truly.  I’m not generally a non-chunky soup fan but the flavor of this soup was fantastic, and even though it’s not chunky, its still nice and thick.  Del instructs you to toast and grind the cumin seeds and I’m sure this really contributed to the rich flavor – so don’t skimp and use bottled, ground cumin if you can help it.  He also calls for fresh oregano which I didn’t have and couldn’t find at the store, so I used dried.  If you do that remember to cut the amount in half.  So, instead of 2 tsp fresh, you would use 1 tsp dry.  I soaked and cooked my own black beans ahead of time, but canned would be fine – just remember to rinse them.  I did not garnish with cilantro because I despise it and think it tastes like perfume.  Bleh! For leftovers the next night I roasted delicata squash, filled it with wild rice and kale, and topped it with the bisque – YUM!

Chef Del’s Smokey Black Bean Bisque from “Better Than Vegan”

To be the lucky winner of this great book simply answer the question following the recipe to enter yourself in the drawing.  One winner will be randomly chosen on Wednesday, 1/15/14.

Contest Question: How many vegan or vegetarian cookbooks do you own? 

Happy New Year AND my guest blog post at Yummly.com featuring my delicious Zucchini Oat Muffins Recipe

Posted on by
Reply

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!  I hope you all had wonderful holidays and are getting back into the groove, ready to take on 2014!  It sure got here quickly, didn’t it?  For those of you who have made a resolution to eat better (and, let’s be honest, who hasn’t), I’m hoping you will utilize my website more often.  I have big plans to revamp and improve it, making it easier for recipe searches, etc.  As well, I begin my plant-based cooking school this month and hope to come up with lots of new dishes.  Let’s get things started off right with a low-fat, gluten-free, vegan, tasty zucchini muffin recipe (see below).

I came up with these on a Sunday morning when I was feeling that creative cooking bug that pokes at me so often.  Seemed like a good time to create a muffin of some kind.  I opened the fridge to seek inspiration only to have the zucchinis practically throwing themselves at me.  Hence this Zucchini Oat Muffin recipe was born.  Many recipes I come up with require tweaking and a second or third go around before I can share, but not this one! I got lucky first time around.  And now you’re getting lucky!

For this recipe, I used a combination of gluten-free flour (I really like Trader Joe’s brand)  and oat flour made with certified gluten-free oats.  You can make your own oat flour by using your blender to grind the oats.  Super easy! These muffins are only slightly sweet and are especially delicious warmed, with a TINY bit of vegan butter if you’re feeling dangerous, (and I was).   🙂 I find these keep best refrigerated after the first day, wrapped in a cloth napkin.  Also, if you are feeling adventurous, sub some of the zucchini with carrot!

Feel free to leave out the walnuts if you don’t like them or are eating an extra low-fat diet.  I love their flavor and texture in this dish, and the nice dose of Omega 3’s they (and the chia seeds) provide.  Enjoy!!

I’ve posted this recipe to Yummly.com as a guest blogger.  Please visit my post at http://blog.yummly.com/blog/2014/01/healthy-vegan-gluten-free-zucchini-oat-muffins/  Enjoy!!

Approximate nutritional info: with walnuts – 153 cals, 3.75 fat grams; without walnuts -125 calories, 1 fat gram.

UPDATE: I made these muffins with ALL oat flour when I was out of gluten-free all purpose and they were great!! 

Chocolate Cran-Cherry Granola

Reply

There is no shortage of granola recipes on-line, though I’d never heard of a chocolate variety so when it popped into my head as I was working out, I jumped on it. Many of my recipes come to me during exercise – weird. Anyhow, I got the idea to use cacao nibs and cocoa powder to make the granola chocolatey.  Sure, I could use chocolate chips but this is granola, it’s supposed to be healthy!

For those not familiar with cacao nibs, they are basically raw chocolate, pieces of cacao beans that have been roasted, hulled and prepped to the point where all that there is left to do is process them into bars.  Like dark chocolate, they are somewhat bitter and they are very pure with no added sugar.  I like them in the granola however because there are plenty of other sweet elements.  The bitter, nutty flavor of the nibs with the cherries, cranberries and maple syrup and/or date paste is delicious.  Best part?  Your milk in the bowl ends up like chocolate milk!  Who doesn’t love that?

Cacao beans, and thus cacao nibs, are one of the best dietary sources of magnesium — a mineral needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in our bodies — with 272 milligrams per 100 grams.  Cacao nibs are very high in antioxidants, and have about 9 grams of fiber per 1 ounce!

Since they will melt like any other type of chocolate, you need to wait until the granola is cooled before adding the cacao nibs.

Lemon-Maple Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Reply

Roasted Brussels sprouts are really popular right now and we eat them a lot in our house.  Wanting to change up the flavors just a bit, I decided to add some sweet (maple) and sour (lemon).  I think this is my new favorite way to eat them.  I made them on the same night I made Spicy Butternut Squash Soup.  The soup was a bit too spicy for me and I found myself taking bites of soup and sprouts together to tame some of the heat.  Ultimately I dumped my entire plate of sprouts into the soup.  I may eat it this way forever.  Really good.