Thursday, April 4, 2019

Starting #WFPB in April, Episode 4

Simple things...

Breakfast: 

Trusty steelcuts, today blackberries instead of strawberries, otherwise the same recipe. The backberries were 99 cents a box at Keyfood Unionport this week.

Snacks of fruit and/or steamed kale with sweetpotato


Lunch:

Steamed Kale,

Cucumber salad with chia seeds, garlic and 1/2/3 dressing.

Brown rice/millet Ramen with collards and carrots, and tempeh instead of tofu.

Dinner:

Off the hook - an experiment - this is for a weekend or a holiday, and preferably when you have help. It was Beet Salad, Pesto Pasta, Cooked Spinach, and the pièce de résistance, a banana blossom sauce on the side. This was dinner for three, so I shared with a neighbor and still have a leftover for another day. Cleaning the banana blossom is something that takes too much time, unless you have elves around to do it while you are cooking. The dinner could have worked without it, but it was a great side dish, and definitely something I might do with company. Preparing food together is one of the joys of life. - The rest of the meal is pretty quick to prepare.

Beet salad, as per day #3

Pesto Pasta

Ingredients

16 oz of your favorite pasta I like whole wheat pasta, but you can do quinoa, lentil or chickpea pasta

3 cups fresh basil
3 cups fresh baby spinach
3/4 cup raw cashews ( I did 1/2 cup cashews and 1/4 cup pine nuts)
1-2 lemons juiced 1 large lemon or two smaller lemons or even 1 lemon and 1 lime
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
5-6 garlic cloves or 2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pink salt add more to taste (or less if you want to avoid salt altogether).

Additionally, a wad of cooked spinach and some cooking water (with onions, garlic, chilis and jalapeno), blended in to arrive at a smooth consistency.

optional: highly recommended: add in some sundried tomatoes cut in strips.

Preparation

Boil your pasta.
While pasta is boiling, blend all ingredients in food processor until completely combined, scraping down the sides as necessary.

Strain pasta (rinse if gluten-free), then mix pesto into pasta.

Serve and enjoy!

Boiled Spinach

Two bunches of spinach, keep some fresh leaves aside for the pesto sauce.
caramelize some onions with some chopped chilis and jalapeno, use about half for a side of spinach, and blend about half into the pesto sauce.

Banana Blossom Sauce

Note: This one was too much work. Fun to do, but too much for one person - you need more than one person to clean the banana blossom, as per this video:


Here is the adapted recipe:


Ingredients

1 Banana blossom - cleaned, chopped
2 onions, chopped fine
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 sheets of nori
1 tsp dill
1-2 pieces of turmeric or 1 tsp of turmeric powder
1 cup of water
1-2 tsp caper brine, or pickle brine
1/4 tsp black himalayan salt
2 tsp gram flour
1 lemon (juice)

Preparation

  • Caramelize the onions, with some cubes of veggie broth
  • Once the onions are soft and brownish, cook at medium low, adding in garlic, turmeric, shredded nori, dill, stir constantly to dissolve the flour and make a smooth sauce.
  • Add in the chopped banana flowers and cook on medium/low for 10 minutes till its soft but still has some spring to it (al dente).
Serve.

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