Curry, always a work in progress

Squash

Veggies:

Kale

Squash

Mushrooms

Red Onion

Asparagus

Carrots

Basil

Cilantro

Sauce:

2 cans coconut milk

1-2 tablespoons of sesame or peanut oil

1/2 teaspoon chili oil

1/3 to 1/2 cup of fresh ground peanut butter

1 cube of Rapunzel garlic & sea salt bouillon cube

3 gloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper

2 tablespoons of agave nectar (Or any other sweetener)

2-4 tablespoons of curry powder

2 tablespoons of soy sauce (we used wheat-free)

2 bay leaves

Juice from 1/2 lime

Peanut Curry

The sauce I began with first, but slowly adding and stirring each ingredient in keeping the burner on low to cook at a slow simmer.  While the sauce was simmer I cut up the veggies and using a little sesame oil I stir fried them in the pan with some garlic and ginger beginning with carrots (as the take longer to cook).  I do not like my veggies soft, so I only do this for a couple of minutes and then I ladled enough curry to soak the veggies in (adding the cilantro and basil last)  and let them simmer in the sauce for 15-20 minutes.  While doing so I chose to use rice stick (vermicelli) noodles, although rice or quinoa could be fine too.  This time the curry came out a little closer to what I have had in some Thai restaurants, not perfect but almost there.  This dish is good served hot or cold.

Yay for buckwheat!

Almond Buckwheat Bars with Almond Milk

Ever since I went to Santa Fe and had raw cereal with buckwheat I’ve been hooked.  I also have been enjoying fresh almond milk rather than purchasing it the grocery store.  Almond milk is ridiculously easy.

• 2 cups of almonds
• 5-7 cups of water depending on how watery you prefer it
• 2 tbs. of agave nectar

Allow the almonds to sit 8 hours in the water.  Once soaked puree in a blender and strain the shredded almonds with a cheese cloth and cool in the fridge.  I saved the shredded almonds to use later and Almond Buckwheat Bars is what I ended up with.

• 1/2 cup of raw buckwheat
• 1 cup shredded almonds
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup raw sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1/4 cup dried currants
• 1/4 dried cranberries
• 1 tbs. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. maple flavoring
• 1 cup agave nectur

Blend all together in a bowl and spread out in a small square cake pan (use whatever you need to allow them to be easily removed).  Then baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  While cooling I went ahead and scored with a knife pieces to be broken into bars.  After cooled I removed the block from the pan and gently broke them into their pieces and rebaked for another 20 minutes on a cookie sheet.  I allowed them to sit overnight and ate them the next day.  They are a combination between crunchy and chewy.

A few weeks ago I attempted to do something similar but it just didn’t work out as well.  This time they turned out rather well and I have been receiving good feedback from the folks at the coffee shop.

Untroubled Asylum

Today I visited the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary  where I was given a tour of the grounds and a meet and greet with their rescued animals that were castaways because they were no longer wanted or no longer able to produce.  These animals have the real free range of the acreage, co-mingle with each other, and are showered with affection from the founders Michele and Chris who are vegan.  I made friends with a goat named Oliver.  The goats were the first to greet us and nearly all of them picked a person to buddy with.  The sanctuary has goats, sheep, chickens, cattle, pigs, ducks, geese, etc…  Most of the animals love human attention.  There will be a benefit concert for the sanctuary coming up soon.  Donations and volunteers are welcomed and frankly spending an afternoon with a goat companion out on the plains mucking the sheds doesn’t sound like such a bad place to be when you dwell in the city with rate race daily life.

I <3 Hummus

Traditional Hummus

Ingredients

2 cups dried chickpeas

2-3 cups of water

1 tablespoon of baking soda

5-7 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup of olive oil

Juice from 1 lemon

1/2 cup of tahini

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Salt to taste

Garnished with paprika, extra olive oil, and a spring of cilantro

I cannot express how much I detest store bought hummus.  The texture is all wrong, there’s too much lemon juice, not enough garlic, etc…  Let’s not mention how ridiculously expensive tolerable hummus is.  So do you make hummus from chickpeas in a can or dried?  A friend made some hummus a few weeks ago and had made them with canned beans.  The texture was lumpy, but the flavor was okay.  However, I am a very textural eater.  I want creamy hummus just like the kind I receive at most Mediterranean restaurants.  I made the decision that this creamy versus lumpy hummus must depend on dried beans and canned beans.

I soaked about 2 cups of dried chickpeas in a bowl of water with a little baking soda over night (it was actually nearly 24 hours).  The next morning I cooked the chickpeas with fresh water for about an hour to an hour and a half with unpeeled garlic cloves.  Afterwards draining (and saving) the water for use later.  Once I separated the chickpeas I rinsed them very thoroughly to get the skin that comes away separated.  This took some time.  Once the chickpeas were cleaned I placed them in the blender with saved water, the now peeled garlic cloves, salt (to taste), lemon juice, cumin, and tahini and pureed my little heart out.

Guess what!?  Creamy.  Delicious.  And I don’t think I can go back to store bought hummus ever again.  Period.

Short Travel and Recipe Disasters

Dinner at Pasqual's

Twenty-four hours in Santa Fe, NM

Every year we drive to Santa Fe, NM for an evening.  This year we brought our dog with us.  The Las Palomas allows pups and was only a couple blocks away from the historic plaza.  The hotel was nice and served traditional breakfast, although not entirely vegan (I think I had  bowl of melon).  The room was nice in the way that we had an adobe studio to ourselves and could step right out for a walk to dinner.  We ate at Pasqual’s.  It was a good thing I had called ahead right before they opened because they were packed right at5:30 and the reservation was a good idea.

Bread Sticks

My husband and I enjoyed (myself) a vegan meal and (he) a gluten-free vegetarian meal.  There aren’t many vegan options on the menu but they do offer tofu and if it isn’t preprepared with cheese will gladly omit the dairy.  I had the mole enchiladas with tofu, cliantro rice and jicama salad.  I can honestly say that was one of the best Latin meals since going vegan.

Since the hotel didn’t offer much in the way of a vegan breakfast I found a place called the Body Cafe that was only a couple miles from where we were staying.  The Body Cafe is located in a shared space with a yoga studio.  The menu has vegan and gluten-free options and has quite a bit of raw options as well.  It is your typical new-agey establishment though.  The service wasn’t the best and unless you’re a regular the ordering process is awkward (as in they just kind of stare at you).  I had the body ambrosia which is a raw cereal made of buckwheat, seeds, fruit and coconut with their homemade nut milk.  Needless to say, I came home and mixed my own batch of similar ingredients and even made my own almond milk this week to keep having that dish at home.

Body Ambrosia

 

Cooking Calamities

Calamity #1: Before our trip to Santa Fe that morning, I tried to make a cold millet salad from the most recent Vegetarian Times.  See, it’s not that it tasted terrible or anything, but I have yet to have millet where the texture is palatable.  This is the second millet recipe executed in our household that has failed simply on texture alone.

Calamity #2: As I mentioned I set out to make almond milk.  The almond milk turned out great, what didn’t turn out so great was that I didn’t want to waste the shreds of almonds left over and thought that I could make something with them.  Rather than doing research I just started to add things I had in the house…  Buckwheat, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, currants, coconut, peanut butter, and honey (yes I know, not vegan).  Well the biggest problem is that I just didn’t have enough honey to really bind it together or sweeten it enough.  After I baked it, it just crumbled.  I’m still eating it even if it’s not the most super exciting and it isn’t even all that crunchy.  I’m stubborn though, a good midwesterner to boot.  Waste not, want not.  But if you judge by the photo, it looks pretty good!

Calamity #2

 

I still had a ton of shredded almonds left over and brought them along with a sample of the almond milk I made to the baker at Caffe Sanora here in Denver.  This is my favorite coffee shop in Denver.  The coffee is organic, antioxidant enriched, independently owned, and they have their own in-house baker.  Linda bakes something for everyone, from a bacony-egg bagel, gluten-free muffins, and vegan scones.  Using the almond milk I gave her she made a fresh batch of scones as I was sitting there chatting it up with one of the regulars.  She also had taken the almond shreds and put them in her chocolate biscotti.  My hand milked almonds are in a coffee shop near you!

Isn’t there something you can do with split peas that doesn’t involve ham?

Soaking Split Peas

I have had this small jar of split peas sitting on my shelf for quite some time now.  My husband had been making this anti-cancer soup last winter, but now they have sat there in that little jar.  I must say how much I like to put things in jars.  I like to line them up on the window sill and look at all the different colors of things that are being stored.  The millet is next.

So after googling what to do with split peas all I came across were soups.  Somehow though some Indian recipes popped up.  I think I converged about 3 different split pea dal, paneer, and curry recipes to get this one.  I really thought this was going to turn out terribly, but somehow it didn’t.  It looks like  a lot, but it really wasn’t all that much work.  I soaked the split peas while I road my bicycle down to vitamin cottage to pick up some ingredients and then once everything was lumped together I pretty much only had to stir it occasionally and that was that.

He seemed to like it

 

I even had seconds

 

Split Pea & Spinach Dal-Saag Paneer (something-or-other)

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1 block of tofu

Split Pea & Spinach Dal-Saag Paneer

1 diced small onion

1 cup dried split peas

3 cups of fresh spinach

1 can of coconut milk

1 tbs. corn starch

1 cup of brown basmati rice

1 cup of water

1/4 tsp. of turmeric

1 tsp. sea salt

4 tbs. of vegan butter/margarine

1 tbs. fresh minced ginger

3 cloves of minced garlic

2 tbs. garam masala

1 tbs. lime juice

1/2 tsp. curry powder

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. coriander

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cumin

1/3 cup fresh cilantro

Prep:

Soak split peas in one cup of water for an hour.

Press water out of tofu.

I began by simmering the  onion, garlic, and ginger in the vegan butter then adding in the spices.  After a few minutes the spinach was added and sauteed until slightly wilted.  After soaking the peas they were then added in the pan (with the water) with the simmering butter, spices onion and brought to a slight boil.  Afterwards the coconut milk, lime juice, corn starch and cubed tofu were added and cooked for an hour to an hour to two hours (depending on how soft you like your split peas).  Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve over rice.

 

 

The First Recipes

Beets from my grandparents garden.

Recently I spent two weeks in my childhood town in Missouri.  I grew up right along the Missouri river, which is now flooding and devastating quite a few crops and homes.  My family home is fortunately not near the flood plane.  My grandparents keep a small garden every summer and sent me back to Denver with a bagful of fresh beets.

Family Garden in Missouri

Beets aren’t typically the first vegetable I jump for at the market and so I am always at a loss as to what to do with them.  I decided to create some variation of Teresa’s Kale & Beet Greens recipe.  However, I didn’t use beet greens and decided on the beets themselves.

Kale & Beet Salad

Ingredients: 

 2 Cups Kale

1/4 Cup Pecans

Salt to taste

1 Carrot

1 Clove of Garlic

Splash of lemon

2-3 Small-medium sized beets

1 Small knob of Ginger

1 Tbs. of Olive Oil

1 Tsp. of Agave Nectar

Kale & Beet Salad
First things first.  Wash, slice, and boil the beets until tender.  Drain and set aside.

After peeling the kale away form their stems, add the kale to a pan with olive oil, minced garlic and ginger (add salt here if you like).  I sauteed the kale until it turned dark green and set aside in a bowl to cool.

Adding the sliced beets to the pan with the left over olive oil and remainder of garlic and ginger I then sauteed for a few minutes then added the pecans sauteed for just a few more minutes and then added the beets and pecans to the kale.

Using a peeler, peel strips of carrots into the salad and toss with the agave nectar and a slight squeeze of lemon.  Don’t add too much lemon juice as it will overpower the flavor.  Toss and cool in the refrigerator.

Quinoa & Portabella Patties

Quinoa & Portablla Patties

Ingredients:

1 Cup cooked quinoa with vegetable bouillon

4 Portabella mushroom caps, cleaned

1/2 Can of black beans

1/4 Cup pine nuts

1/2 red bell pepper

1/2 green bell pepper

1 banana pepper

1 cup of kale

1 ear of corn

1 small zucchini

2 cloves of minced garlic

1 tbs. olive oil

4-6 tbs. of hummus

1-2 tsp. of chipotle seasoning

Juice from one lime

Juice from one lemon

Fresh basil leaves

When I make a salad out of quinoa, there always seems to be enough to last the whole week.  So after a day or two of eating leftovers, there is a strong desire to find new uses for it.  A few days ago I made a quinoa salad to make something like veggie tacos.  My husband and I had some friends over last night and thinking about what to serve inspired this recipe.

I cook my quinoa with Rapunzel Garlic & Sea Salt Bouillon  and a small drop of olive oil. Probably my favorite bouillon (yes I get excited about bouillon)!  After the quinoa has cooked, I set aside in a bowl to cool.  While that is cooling, I saute the minced garlic and chipotle season in olive oil with all the veggies including the kale for 5-10 minutes.  Afterwards adding the vegetables to the quinoa to cool.  You can also add the black peans, pine nuts, and lime.  While the quinoa salad is in the refrigerator cooling lightly oil a baking sheet and cook the portabella mushrooms in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Remove and let cool to room temperature.  Once the mushroom caps have cooled down, spread a tablespoon to two tablespoons of hummus into each cap and add the quinoa salad on top garnishing with a few small leaves of basil.  Squeeze a little lemon juice atop each cap and refrigerate until ready to serve.

In the Beginning

Vegan photographer who photographs dead animals.

A Short Biography

When I was thirteen, my grandparents and I met my aunt in Seattle while she was on a business trip.  Immediately afterwards, my grandmother became a loose vegetarian.  When I say loose, I mean she still eats some fish.  I am twenty-nine now and she is still a loose vegetarian and living in Missouri no less.  I grew up in the fifth largest city of Missouri, a town called St. Joseph.  This is the town where the beginning point to the Pony Express route took it’s first steps of mail delivery and the home where Jesse James was assassinated by Robert Ford.  The Brad Pitt movie however, was filmed in Canada and not St. Joseph, or any other part of the midwest.

I moved to Denver eleven years ago this fall, right out of high school and straight into art school.  During this time I have experienced many transformations that only moving to Denver I believe would have allowed.  My first few years here I went from diner and fast food (affordable) eating to on-again off-again vegetarian to vegan.  I have been a vegan for two years this fall.  When I was a child I loved a good steak but detested eggs.  My trysts with vegetarianism would come in spurts, mostly after a break up where I succumbed to a carnivorous diet because my current boyfriend would insist on meaty meals.  Sometimes my vegetarianism would only be homes prepared at home with the occasional bacon or fish snack in restaurants.  When I met my husband that is primarily how I conducted my diet.  When we moved in together we had made a small meal for my visiting family where preprepared meatballs were purchased to satisfy my grandfather’s need for animal protein.  Those meatballs (and from Whole Foods!) were so disgusting that I was vegetarian for a month afterwards to a vegan.

A Short Manifesto

It wasn’t just the meatballs but I had read The China Study at the recommendation of a colleague at the college campus I teach at.  This book hit home with me as it had called out animal proteins as a primary feeder of cancerous cells.  My father (who was a chef) had died of melanoma shortly after I had moved to Denver.  My interest in veganism began with health awareness and has transform from not only from a desire to live a clean life, but even an ethical one with much disgust in the USDA in their lax attitudes towards responsibility of animal and human care.  I can no longer feel good financially supporting a government organization that doesn’t look out for their consumers.  Something I knew was looming in the dark, but chose not to validate until I decided to read Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals.  It made me cry.  I am still idyllic when it comes to the desire that we treat living creatures (animals or humans alike) well.  As a group we don’t.  Individuals often believe in the wellness of others, when there is money involved and we’re working as an entity, we just don’t.  I don’t oppose the eating of animals.  Heck, they’d eat us! I don’t support the American system of factory farming and slaughter.

Why?

I am creating this blog because I enjoy many things about my chosen lifestyle and I hope to share them with others who are interested as well.  I don’t intend to make this blog too soap-boxy (although it’s begun that way).  I would like to use this platform to share recipes, research, photographs, interests, and ideas to inform others or at the least organize and clarify my own reasonings.