3 unconventional uses for quinoa

So, you went wild and bulk purchased a little too much quinoa.  It's not like the quinoa won't keep, but you are growing tired of your standard quinoa and veggie fare.  Here are some wonderful, unconventional ways to use quinoa.

Photo credit:  Wholly Vegan

Brussels sprout slaw

There are a few vegetables that feel like absolute treats to me!  Baked sweet potatoes, with their oh-so-rich creaminess, their oh-so-sweet aroma, and their oh-so-satisfying warmth, are a given!  One of my favorite breakfasts is a baked sweet potato.  Sometimes I even dollop hummus on there.

Roasted brussels sprouts have always been up there for me, too.  In fact, another one of my favorite breakfasts is a mountain of roasted brussels sprouts.  

Coffee Roundup! ...with recipes for every special diet

"I think I'm drinking too much coffee!  I think I'm drinking too much coffee!"

I own a mug adorned with an image of a visibly jittery individual rattling off this phrase, over and over again.  Often times, I wonder if I'm becoming the very person on the front of my coffee cup.  

With this round up, I don't have to worry if I'm drinking too much coffee.  The concern, instead, becomes "I think I'm eating too much coffee!"  But then you see how much coffee is actually in each of these recipes and you realize it's NBD.  Consume your coffee with abandon, go wild!

Photo credit: Hell Yeah It's Vegan

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting

Recipe

Roasted and stuffed acorn squash

IRL and in the blogosphere, autumn is my absolute favorite season.  Bloggers fill their pages with seasonally-inspired projects and dishes.  From pumpkin round-ups to easy decoration tutorials, the posts are festive, alluring, fun.  I read them with all of my senses, imagining the warmth of a vegan pumpkin spice latte or the deep chocolate scent of pumpkin swirl brownies in the oven.

During vegan month of food, I began following Julie at My Apologies for the Novel and since then, I've fallen for post after post that she shares.  This fall season is no different; Julie posted about everything from festive sweets to halloween decorations.  Her stuffed acorn squash looked delicious! And luckily, Julie suggested some recipe modifications in her post.  I used her suggestions and recipe to create a very similar dish!  I played with savory and sweet spices in this recipe, using both sage and cinnamon (you could venture into adding some maple syrup, if you want!).  I was worried about how the spices would play off one another, but I was surprised by the result.  Next time, I want to try for a creamy texture with the wild rice filling, maybe pureeing and using some of the roasted squash in the rice.  Over all, though, the squash was not only hearty and filling, it felt like autumn in my mouth. Exactly what I imagined when I read Julie's initial post, and exactly what I crave during the autumn months.

Pumpkin brownie cookies

It's fall flavor time!  Nst nst nst nst.

What better way is there to get started than with a vegan and gluten-free dessert?! A brownie-cookie hybrid celebrating my love of pumpkin and my addiction to chocolate!

Pumpkin brownie cookies

Vegan enfrijoladas

"Es mi cocina."

The three words my mom uses when she wants me to get out of her way in the kitchen.  They're kinder than "get the hell out," less cutesy than "skedaddle," and more true to her possessiveness with cooking and the kitchen space than anything else.

I understand where she's coming from, too.  There are times when we really can't share a kitchen.  There are reasons, boy are there reasons, why.  That's for another day.

For today, I want to share a recipe my mom and I agree on: enfrijoladas.  My mom learned to make these when she babysat a boy named Ramoncito in Mexico City.  Ramon's mom taught my mom, Jubita, and then my mom taught me how to make this enchilada spin-off.  Of course, if Ramon's mom knew what I'd do to this recipe to make it vegan, she might regret ever sharing cooking tips with Jubita.  But she doesn't know.  And the vegan recipe 1) doesn't threaten the integrity of the original and 2) is just as delicious as the original (according to my mom).

Italian two bean spaghetti (squash)

Discovering spaghetti squash was a big moment in my life, and it happened just last year!  Since then, I've done the standard thing and topped it with a thick marinara sauce.  I've also added soy chorizo and chopped kale to the marinara sauce, yielding one of my favorite quick and satisfying go-to dishes.

I started playing with spaghetti squash without sauce last year, too.  For some reason, white balsamic vinegar became a favorite add in, along with veggies (let's be honest, kale almost always made the cut) and beans (lbh again, chickpeas, always.)  I also really loved the flavors of the spices P.S. Cooper and I used to make the stuffed portabella mushrooms, so I made sure to include some of those spices.  Unfortunately, I had no herbes de provence to speak of and instead went for thyme.  What resulted was an italian-inspired spaghetti squash dish that provides protein with both chickpeas and kidney beans.

Italian Two Bean Spaghetti (Squash)

Stuffed portabella mushrooms

This weekend was a good food and good company weekend.  Apart from the brunch potluck, I enjoyed a dinner P.S. Cooper, the boyfriend, planned.  I am such a lucky gal.

P.S. Cooper and I adapted a recipe for vegan stuffed portabella mushrooms.  I think our plan was to follow the recipe as is, but we ended up making a few changes because our filling was definitely not going to fit in our portabellas!  Even with our attempts to alter the proportions, the mushrooms were still overflowing.  Not that I'm complaining! It was incredible.  Boyfriend did a great job picking this one out.  Once we began eating, he said that the mushrooms tasted "like Thanksgiving," and I see where he's coming from -- it's hearty and autumnal, and it tastes almost like stuffing sans bread.  I also really enjoyed the flavor from the herbes de provence.

Citrus sweet potato salad

Happy Monday!  What a wonderful weekend it's been!

I enjoyed the company of friends at a brunch potluck yesterday.  Alicia hosted us at her new home, meaning I had a chance to see many of her beautiful projects in person, and catch up with her and Najma, another good friend.

An added perk to attending the potluck was a chance to do some more kitchen experimenting.  When I began work on a sweet potato salad, I aimed for something both savory and sweet, something with a citrus edge and a foundation of vegetables, something healthy, and something that jointly appeals to the paleo diet and the vegan diet.  Here is the result!

Citrus Sweet Potato Salad

Ingredients
Salad
5 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small cucumber, diced very small (optional*)
3 tbsp. pepitas
1/2 c. dried cranberries

Dressing
1 1/2 c. fresh squeezed orange juice (no added sugar)
1 tbsp. dijon mustard
1/2 tbsp. maple syrup
juice from 1/2 of a lime

1.  Steam the peeled and cubed sweet potatoes in a steamer basket until soft.  You should be able to easily pierce them with a fork.  Remove from steamer basket and place in a large mixing bowl.

2.  While steaming the sweet potatoes, make the dressing.  Combine all ingredients and put through a blender or food processor for a quick 10 or 20 seconds.  You could try whisking vigorously, but it is difficult to get the dijon mustard well incorporated by hand.

3.  Pour 3/4 of the dressing over the steamed sweet potatoes.  Use a bean masher to mash some of the sweet potatoes, while leaving other sweet potatoes in tact.  Doing this after you add the dressing should be fairly easy.  Stir.

4.  Add in the cucumber, dried cranberries, and pepitas.  Pour the remaining 1/4 of the dressing into the mix at this point. Stir until everything is well-incorporated.  Refrigerate overnight, allowing flavors to fully soak in.

*I am currently working on getting rid of a large number of cucumbers from our garden, so expect them to show up in my recipes over the next few weeks. In my personal opinion, you probably don't need them in this recipe, though I liked having a raw veggie in the mix.

Uncommonly Good: Creamy Dilly Chickpea Salad

In my last real post I mentioned that I drove my at-home family to UIUC to visit three of my brothers who live in the area (in case you are keeping track, I have six hermanos all together).  I made the silly mistake of going for a quick three and a half mile jog before we hit the road.  Obviously, I stretched after my run, but what I didn't do was refuel... at all.  When we finally arrived at the university, I was beyond hungry.  My hunger transformed from an occasional growl to something unbearable!  Luckily, our very first stop was meeting up with the brothers for lunch.  Whenever I visit my UIUC family, we always eat at Common Ground Co-op.  On my first visit, I fell in love with this place.  They have a huge selection of vegan and gluten-free options.  Thanks to sibs who know how to share, I've tried almost everything from the house-made sweets section.  They have a huge selection of vegan scones, muffins (the gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are addictive), and cookies (peanut butter cookie FTW!).  Though I shamelessly admit that my true motivation in life is obtaining and consuming vegan baked goods, the food food at Common Ground is just as good as the sweets. Please don't tell anyone I said that. They have vegan quiches, vegan brekky burritos, vegan sweet potato and black bean tamales, vegan soups, vegan sammiches, vegan pizzas (yes, plural! "I'd like a slice of the vegan pizza, please." "Which one?" "!!!!!!!!!!") and, essentially, vegan everything! Plus, all of it is on point.  College towns are where it's at.  Suburbs, catch up!!  You're totally embarrassing me, and I want nothing to do with you.

Vegan peanut butter cookie from Common Ground.  Uncommonly good is beyond accurate.

Vegan cranberry orange scone.  The best scone I've ever had.

On my most recent visit to Common Ground, I was ravenous.  So so so ravenous.  Then, I was overwhelmed with options, thus preventing me from acquiring food efficiently.  Vegan cardboard would've tasted good by the time I finally settled on a house-made chickpea salad that looked and tasted more like potato salad and house-made cajun spiced tofu. Though it might have been the hunger, I couldn't handle just how great the chickpea salad and tofu were. I kept raving.  Perhaps my company wanted to talk about other things.  Unfortunately, I had food on my mind and finally entering my system.  I vowed to myself that as soon as I had the opportunity to get into the kitchen again I would remake the chickpea salad.  A busy storm struck, and it wasn't until dinner today that I had the time to get to work on re-creating the salad.  

My brother, Dan, who is also vegan, told me that the co-op used veganaise in the chickpea salad.  I've never purchased veganaise and really was not in the mood to start today.  I've made a vegan potato salad without it before, so I knew it could be done.  I drew on Detoxinista's potato salad recipe for inspiration.  Avocado for creaminess? That sounds stellar. When all was said and done, I decided my salad was better than the one from Common Ground!  Blasphemy!  ...but actually.

Creamy Dilly Chickpea Salad

Ingredients

2 cans of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (16 oz/each) rinsed and drained

1/2 avocado

1/3 c. dijon mustard

3/4 c. cucumber (1 small cucumber) diced very small

3/4 c. celery diced very small

1/3 c. onion diced very small

juice from 1/2 lemon
1 heaping tbsp. dry dill weed 

black pepper to taste

1.  Place the finely diced veggies in a large mixing bowl and add one can (16 oz) of drained chickpeas to the bowl.

2.  Put the avocado and dijon mustard through a blender or food processor until smooth.  This will be a thick mixture, so use a rubber spatula to get it all out of your blending apparatus and into the same mixing bowl as the veggies.

3.  Without cleaning your blending apparatus, blend the second can of drained chickpeas.  Do not blend until the mixture is pureed.  This would be difficult to do since there is no liquid, but don't try to force it.  Remove the chickpeas from the blender when the mixture is chunky -- some chickpeas should still be partially in tact.  Once again, use your rubber spatula to add the broken down chickpeas to the mix.

4.  Add lemon juice, dry dill weed, and black pepper.  Mix.  Take a bean masher and mash all of the contents of the bowl.  At this point, alternate mixing and mashing until everything is well incorporated.  Your final product will be chunky (because of the generous amount of add-in vegetables and the whole and near-whole chickpeas that remain) and creamy.

5.  Enjoy immediately or refrigerate.  This would work well in a pita, on top of toast, or wrapped in large leafy vegetables such as collard greens or romaine.  But for my personal favorite, all you have to do is turn the camera a bit:

You should probably do this.  If you're smart that is.  Cut off the tops and remove the seeds from red, orange, or yellow baby bell peppers and stuff them generously with the salad.  Crunch away!

Simple sides: nectarine salsa

Since I introduced you to P. S. Cooper during my weekend recap, it seems only natural to share some of the food we've cooked either together or for one another.  Although I joke that I'm attempting to convert P. S. Cooper to veganism, I actually don't intend to do so at all!  Apart from differing dietary preferences, he and I disagree about what makes a good pizza (dough-y and soft for me; a super crispy crust for him), and we don't always see eye to eye when it comes to seasoning (who doesn't recognize crushed red pepper as the ultimate pantry staple spice?!).  Yet somehow we always manage to impress and delight when we cook for each other.

A few weeks back, I made this nectarine salsa along with chipotle tempeh and black bean stuffed bell peppers for  P. S. Cooper.  His office has an annual homemade salsa contest, which he asserts this salsa would win!  Go nectarine salsa, go! Go good boyfriend with your good compliments, go!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.  As for the chipotle tempeh and black bean stuffed bell pepper recipe -- I'll post it in the coming weeks!

Nectarine Salsa

Ingredients

3 nectarines (anywhere between firm and just ripe will do, I liked having both firm and ripe fruit in the mix) diced

1/2 red onion diced

1/2 jalapeño with seeds (adjust to your desired level of spice), finely chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped

juice of 3 limes

dash of salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, add lime juice and salt last.  Stir. Chill in fridge for 1 - 2 hours.  Salsa keeps for a few days but tastes and looks best fresh.

No-greens salad: a salsa salad

Just two short weeks from now, I will board a plane flying to Honduras.  Mentally, I'm situated in a horrible mess of nerves and stress.  From packing to talking with my boyfriend about the move (a never ending dialogue, as it should be) to learning all about bilingual education and the brain development of six-year-olds, I feel like I don't know where to begin, when the preparations end, and why I can't get a decent amount of sleep on any given night.

I've tried to compartmentalize my fears and anxieties and to organize the way I am approaching each task -- be it the physical act of creating a packing list (and actually packing) or the mental preparation associated with a serious life change.

Since mental preparation itself is daunting, I've decided to put it on a shelf, to forget it.  Packing for 10 months suddenly sounds like a dream.  When I  think about packing for this next chunk of my life, I think about utility and, ideally, multiple uses of any given item.  A flashlight will be useful if electricity goes out (which it does, about once weekly) and it will be useful if I want to play flashlight tag (with all of those friends I'm sure I'll have).  Bam, useful!  A towel, great for after showers but also a necessary accessory if I go to the hot springs right outside of town.  Bam, also useful!  So, I've made a rule for myself: if something just has one use, it's staying stateside!  Clothes? Bam, bad example!

But there's something about knowing what I'm packing has multiple uses (aka will definitely come in use in some way!) that makes me feel, I don't know, fulfilled, relaxed, at ease?  It makes me feel good.  Bam, words.

The recipe I'm sharing today also has multiple uses.  Create the recipe as is and eat it plain, like a salad, and you will not be upset.  Dip some tortilla chips in here and, friends, you will also most definitely not be upset.  Add the salad to a big old bowl of farro, quinoa, or bulgur and stir that guy up, and... bam, still no one is upset!  The first time I made this salad, I ate it with a fork as dinner (I lead a balanced life), had it with some chips as a snack the next day, and mixed the remainder into a bowl of bulgur and brought it to work for lunch for the next two days.  Now that's utility.

Mango, Cilantro, Black Bean Salsalad (see what I did there?)

Ingredients

2 mangos, peeled and diced

1 orange bell pepper, diced

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup of cilantro, coarsely chopped

1 cup of diced red onions

Juice of 4 limes

Salt to taste

Put all of the prepared ingredients together and mix, evenly distributing lime juice and salt.  Bam, done!

No-greens salad: greek salad

I've woefully decided to separate M&A (see mango and avocado say I do for a full recap) for the next two no-greens salads I'll share.  After all of the hype, I decided it was important that each went out into the world and asserted themselves as significant individuals.  And I'm sure you'll understand why.

One half of a 10k-running, vegan, craft-beer-loving couple is totally different than the other half.  Each person has his own unique qualities, idiosyncrasies, and interests.  Where the couple's interests or lifestyles dovetail is beautiful and is probably what made the relationship sustainable initially.  However, where two people (or fruits) diverge is profound, and that is the space where each can grow and develop and learn.  Within each power couple, there are two power people and each of them should be recognized in his own right.  It's your turn avocado.

Greek (no-greens) Salad

Ingredients

1 avocado

1 small cucumber

1 tomato

1 red bell pepper

1 can of garbanzo beans

black pepper to taste

1.  Dice cucumber, plum tomato, bell pepper, and avocado

2.  Combine all chopped ingredients and garbanzo beans in a bowl, mix

3.  Add black pepper to taste, enjoy while mistaking cucumbers for avocados and vice versa

I've never snapped a picture of this salad, but this morning out in my garden I found a cucumber waiting to be picked.  My eyes are also on my tomatoes; it won't be long now!  I'll be making some backyard-garden-to-fork Greek (no-greens) Salad soon enough.

No-greens salad: mango and avocado say "I do"

Let's be real, there are some couples you see and you're just like "YEAH! ... YEAH!"  They are perfect. They are made for each other.  Have they ever even bickered?! (Answer: yes, probably all of the time.)  You know what I'm talking about, right?  It's like when you see two vegans holding hands, frequenting microbreweries while complimenting one another's taste in porters, and running 10ks together, you're like "wow."  Or nauseous.  Power couples make me queasy sometimes, too.

Not this one, though. Never this one.  Mango and avocado are the least vom-inducing power couple I know.  They are one of plant-based-foods greatest pairings.  So much so that if they televised their wedding, I would go find a T.V. with channels (mine only gets Netflix) somewhere and watch it.

This salad celebrates M&A's happy union.

Mango and Avocado Salad

Ingredients

1 mango

1 orange or red bell pepper

1 avocado

1/2 cup cilantro

1/4 cup green onion (optional)
1 serrano pepper

juice of 2 limes

salt to taste

1.  Peel and dice mango, dice bell pepper, and remove avocado from skin while cutting into small cubes.  Place all ingredients in bowl.

2.  Chop cilantro and green onions.  Finely chop the serrano. Add to bowl.

3.  Squeeze lime juice directly into salad, toss to evenly distribute.  Add salt last and to taste.

4.  Enjoy immediately, or put this salad in the fridge for an hour or so and be delighted.

Notes:  I've had to improvise with this salad before.  No cilantro, no green onion? It's totally fine.  A little mango, bell pepper, and avocado bathing in lime juice is equally delicious.  I had just that over quinoa for lunch one summery afternoon and I felt satisfied and full.

Speaking of couples that belong together forever, today is my mama and papa's wedding anniversary.  36 years, 7 kiddos, and still kicking it together watching westerns on Netflix (because we have no channels).  I used a little sidewalk chalk, in lieu of the traditional card, to mark the day significant, celebratory, and colorful.  Both my parents loved it, but for some reason, it really cracked my mom up when she got home from work... there was an unusual amount of laughter out of her.  

Here's to all of the happy unions!

No-greens salad: who needs leaves?

I fall in and out of love with the standard as-we-know-it salad.  There are days that all I crave is the predictable hard crunch of romaine or the intricate bitter depth of arugula, and then there are days when I want to say "bump you romaine and arugula, oh and totally forget you spinach, I'd rather pop an iron supplement than chew you for even a minute."  Seriously. I'm so up and down with how I feel about salads.  Sometimes, I know it's pure boredom.  I'm the only one to blame for that.  Instead of opening one of my many cookbooks filled with exciting salad recipes (or hopping on my all time favorite recipe-finder: google.com), I retreat to the same old, used, and tired salad recipes I've been eating for the last few vegan years of my life.  It's not only the boredom, but it's this boredom coupled with my stubbornness and laziness.  Here's how I know:  the second I have the option of ordering a Carribean Jerk Kale Salad from Native Foods complete with coconut shavings, mango, avocado, and grilled tempeh, suddenly I don't despise salads so much. As soon as this precious was sitting in front of me, I loved salads all over again.

Last time I mentally (and potentially verbally) declared, "aghhh get away from me you slimy healthful leafy greens," I coped with it in a new way.  I became obsessed with making no-greens salads. Inspired by a recipe from the Vegan Stoner, I started slow, and later worked my way to making my own creations.  Over the next few days I'll share with you my no-greens salads.  To get started, here is the first recipe that I snagged from that aforementioned blog.  You should totally check out the Vegan Stoner, if not for the Apple Tahini Salad, then for the adorable by-hand-sketches each recipe includes and the simple ingredient, straightforward cooking it encourages. No frills, no measurements, so good!

Apple Tahini Salad

Ingredients

Green apple

Red bell pepper (above, I used an orange bell pepper)

Can of chickpeas

1 tbsp (original recipe says "spoonful") of tahini

1 tbsp agave

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

juice of one lemon

1.  Dice green apple and bell pepper in to similar-sized chunks.  Combine with chickpeas in a large bowl.

2.  To make dressing, mix together the agave and tahini, add the balsamic vinegar and the lemon juice and mix in as well.

3.  Pour dressing over the apple, bell pepper, and chickpeas.  Mix in to evenly distribute.

4.  In Vegan Stoner spirit: munch!

Keep an eye out for more no-greens salad recipes this week!