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

View on codegreenwellness.com

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.

Add ingredients to Cozi shopping list

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:

View on elephantasticvegan.com

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.

Starting #WFPB in April, Episode 3

Breakfast easy, peasy

Today, I started with an orange and a pear, while heating up the oatmeal from the other day (I always cook oatmeal for two days), so all I had to do was slice up a banana, add some fresh milled flax seeds (I mill it for a week at a time in my Magic Bullet - see my plant-based kitchen gear collection - and I keep it in a jar in the fridge. milled flax seed just loses its nutritional quality if it lays around for two long, that is why I mill it myself). No strawberries today - I should visit the Keyfoods on Union port, they usually have some of the best selections of berries. Add some hemp hearts (1 tbps) and a drizzle of balsamic et voilà.

Then a cup of steamed kale with sweet potato, mustard seeds, garlic and balsamic.

Zit. That's all folks.

Quick lunch, Cucumber salad and Ramen soup

Cucumber salad

Budget #WFPB No. 1: Ramen

Check out my post on Budget #WFPB No. 1: Ramen for details. Today, I will add some daikon, which I had run out of yesterday.
Meanwhile notice that the Ramen I use is made from Organic Brown Rice and Millet (Lotus foods).

For the rest, I want to make a beet salad tonight, so I am putting 2 beets in the Instant Pot, and they will be ready when I need them. These gadgets are better than having your own cook ;-)

Dinner, regular salad with beets, 

Beet salad

cooked beets, finely cut-up onion, lemon juice - plus some minced garlic if you wish...

Rachel Ray has the best way to cut up an onion...

My preferred method is slightly different, I take off the top with a paring knife, so that its flat, then I put down the onion upside down, and cut it in two with my prep knife or a chef knife. Then I make the incisions not vertically as on this video but on the diagonal towards the center line. After that, you can cut it as thin or as wide as you want for the give purpose. Most of the time I like them very thin, especially for salad.

By the way, beets count as a leafy green, keep that in mind for you want 4-6 portions of leafy greens per day.

Main dish

Oh well, I ran late and I just reheated some of the black/brown rice mixture with Thai veggies. Excellent combo, for the black rice has a bit of a sweet, earthy flavor which balances well with the hot and spicy Thai veggies.

Starting #WFPB in April, Episode 2

Overnight, I cooked oats again.

Steelcut oats the proper way

The bottom line is there is an endless number of ways to make breakfast, with oats or otherwise, but oats have a lot going for them, and in terms of nutritional quality have it over rolled oats (less processing), though arguably whole oats groats would be even better and, if you cook them with a programmable rice cooker like I do, the fact they take longer to cook is unimportant. Be that as it may, Cutting the oats is minimal as far as processing goes, so whole oats groats and steel cut oats are pretty close in terms of nutrition. Steel cut holds a slight edge, so if it's for breakfast cereal, I would prefer them.

One of the biggest things with steel cut oats is that the glycemic index is lower, so it's better for diabetics. And whole oats groats would be even lower.

Anyway, I cook them overnight, using my trusted Zojirushi Induction Heat 3-cup rice cooker. Before I go to bed I put them on for 6:30 AM, on a brown rice cycle. That seems to give me a satisfactory result.

When they are ready, I keep them on keep warm for a while meanwhile I prepare the additions:

• a grated apple (preferably Granny Smith)
• a half a pint of blueberries
• 1 tbsp goji berries
• 2 tbsp raisins
• cinnamon

I leave that on "keep warm" for a minimum of 5 minutes.  Once it's finished, the toppings are added, typically:

• a sliced banana
• some strawberries or other kinds of berries, or fruit
• one tbsp of milled flaxseed
• one tbsp of chia seeds or hemp heart
• a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar
• more cinnamon

 mangia, mangia!

Here's an alternative pic with Jack fruit:

Steelcut Oats with strawberries, blackberries and Jackfruit

Lunch kale, and Ramen

My standard steamed kale with sweet potato, mustard seeds and balsamic, plus I added some fresh garlic.
Budget Ramen with Collard Greens (Sorry, no daikon today)

Dinner a Salad and Thai Veggies over Rice

A Salad of redleaf lettuce, with finely cut red onion, red and green peppers, quinoa, flax seed, tomato, some capers and salad olives, and 1/2/3 dressing.

I already had a mixture of black rice and short grain brown rice ready.

Thai veggies:

• Caramelize two/three finely cut-up onions
• add in some garlic
• Mushrooms
• a can of Thai curry paste (watch the labels, avoid the ones with oil or too much sugar, but there are plenty of good ones).
• peppers in all the colors you can find, green, red, yellow - equivalent to a whole pepper.
• simmer the above for a while and then add:
• Napa cabbage sliced in 1/4"strips
• Sprouts
• bind it with some arrow root or corn starch at the end.

Various fruit for snacks in betwean and some more kale. I usually steam a batch that gives me 4-5 portions, and it stays great in the fridge.

Getting Started with #WFPB in April

Here's the beginning:

Cook soup ahead. I usually have 2-3 different soups in the freezer, so that I am never caught short.
Also some form of dal, or curry, or beans can be cooked ahead. Rice can be cooked ahead.

Since my freezer was empty, I made some Split Pea soup this weekend, to get my month started right. I will cook more soups during the month eventually building up to having 2-3 soups to choose from, until I build it down again and start the cycle anew. I do not believe in fossilized soup in the fridge.
For the rest, I have some frozen mixed vegetables, and some frozen spinach in the fridge, for an emergency, and some whole wheat flour and gram flour that just keeps better in the freezer.

I also always have icecube trays with frozen veggie stock for when I caramelize onions.

Split Pea Soup

Great basic recipe for vegan split pea soup, adapted for #WFPB, by leaving out the oil.

View on allrecipes.com

It might be of interest to compare to the basic recipe I started with online... I removed the oil, but used more onions and garlic, among other things.

Ingredients

2-4 onions, cut fine
4-6 chilis, cut fine
1 seeded, jalapeno, cut fine
3 bay leaves
3-6 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups (2 lbs) dried split peas
1/2 cup barley
1-1/2 tbsp liquid aminos
8-10 cups of vegetable or mushroom bouillon (2 pints)
(Alternatively, half vegetable bouillon and half water with a whole king mushroom, cut up)
3 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 potatoes, diced
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
optionally other vegetables, such as parsnips, or turnips etc.

Preparation

In a large pot over medium high heat, saute the onion, dry for for a total of 10 mins, 5 mins no stir, and 5 mins stirred while adding some 2-3 veggie stock ice cubes, then bay leaf and garlic, cook for 5 minutes on medium.
Add the peas, barley, liquid aminos and water.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low.
Simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, cut up the veggies.
Add more water as needed for the right thickness.
Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, parsley, basil, thyme and ground black pepper.
Simmer for another hour, or until the peas and vegetables are tender.

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Breakfast: Steelcut Oats Plus

Breakfast today... as is typical for this time of year...

What is that?  I always make the oats for 2 days, and today was the 2nd day, so I'll have the oats with apple, blueberry, cinnamon, raisins and goji berries in the fridge, so I just have to heat it up.

• steelcut oats
• grated apple
• cinnamon
• 1 tsp of goji berries
• 1 tsp of raisins
• fresh banana
• fresh strawberry, or whatever other berries or other fruit I might have
• a drizzle of balsamic vinegar
• more cinnamon
• milled flax seed and hemp hearts

Snack: Steamed kale with Sweet Potato

• One bunch steamed kale
• One boiled potato (Japanese is my preference)
• Mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar.

The balsamic is probiotic and a preservative, this mixture stays good in the fridge, so I can snack from if for a day or more. One bunch makes 4-6 portions. The Mustard seeds are courtesy to Dr. Michael Greger, and his research that cooking kale actually destroys certain beneficial enzymes, but some mustard seeds added in after cooking restores that again.

Lunch

Some of that kale with sweet potato salad,
A Cucumber salad with a 1/2/3 with dill and garlic dressing, with chia seeds.
and some of that soon-to-be-famous Split Pea Soup

Step One for Dinner

Rice Cooker #101

For dinner tonight (and a few more days this week) I am having GABA Brown Rice, this time half and half:

• Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice,
• Black Rice.

I put it on after breakfast, on the timer for 6:30 at night. The GABA brown rice process is the healthiest way to eat rice, but it takes 3.5 hours - but a good rice cooker handles all that automatically. The cycle is a 2.5 hour soak, allowing the rice to germinate, and then an approx 1 hour cooking cycle, in my trusted rice cooker.

For details on my preferences about kitchen gear, see my main site, in particular this article about My Tools for the Plant-Based Kitchen.

Dinner

Salad with Red Leaf Lettuce

Red leaf lettuce
chopped red onion
peppers in 2-3 colors chopped up
tomato cut up in small pieces
quinoa, milles flax seed, and some chia seeds
1/2/3 dressing with lemon, lime, garlic and parsley
some capers, and some salad olives.

Main course: Curry of Broad Valor Beans and Japanese Eggplant

That main dish was a leftover from the weekend, but I'll make this recipe again as I am trying to perfect it.

Collard Greens: Cooking Class at St. Helena's

Parkchester March, 16th, 2019 - St. Helena School Cafeteria

This time we focus on Collard Greens. By all means follow the link for an excellent piece on The World's Healthiest Foods about the nutritional powerhouse of Collard Greens.

Collard greens are also very versatile because the leaves are sturdy, so you can sort of make vegetable roti's or tacos or whatever you want to call them...


For our dinner today, we are making a salad, soup and collard green burritos, and we'll have some fruit for desert...

Due to a miscommunication, the whole event did not happen. So we had a

Salad

1 red leaf lettuce
1/2 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 green pepper
1 red onion
2 cooked beets (medium/small, or one large one)
as available, some table spoons of chia seeds (and/or milled flax seeds, or hemp hearts)
5 scoops of cooked quinoa (cold or warm, see below)
some parsley
some salad olives

1/2/3 dressing with lemon and lime (1 tbsp maple syrup, 2 tbsp dijon mustard, 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar)

Option, you could serve it with the quinoa warm and caramelized onions. That might be nicer on a cold day.

 

Miso Soup with Daikon and Collard Greens

Here is the simplest recipe:
https://hippocratessays.com/budget-wfpb-no-1-ramen/

We'll go slightly fancier today (for about 4 people):

4x3=12 cups of water
4x3=12 dried shiitake musrhooms
4x1=4 tbsp hijiki
4/1=4 tbsp wakame

1 daikon
4x3=12 leaves of collard greens (more if small)

1 firm style tofu (jury is out on that one, some swear by silky tofu. Suit yourself.)
6-12 scallions
4x2 tbsp red miso

4 rolls of soba noodles or whole grain ramen.

Collard Green Burritos

Note: Many ways to go here, and you can start with steamed collard green leaves or raw. In either case, you want to flatten the stem with a roller pin, or, you might shave off some of the stems with a knife, so the leaves are easier to roll.

filler:
rice or quinoa, or chunks of boiled sweet potato
low sodium black beans

some ripe avocado
some thinly sliced peppers
chopped onions (I prefer red)
some finely chopped garlic
cooked green beans
sprouts
fresh spinach
cilantro

some mushrooms, depending on variety can be raw or cooked.
some nutritional yeast
some kimchi for seasoning.
salsa

just out of interest, here is another interesting recipe:

https://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-collard-green-burritos/

Our February #WFPB/Suppers Communal Meal Prep at St Helena's

Today started for me with the #WFPB Cooking Demo at ShopRite on Bruckner...


Angela Vita demonstrated how to caramelize onions, and made a delicious salad with kale and butternut squash

Attendance was large and it is clear that the interest is growing.

I did most of my shopping for my class at St Helena's in the store

We made two salads, one a beet salad and one a green salad.
We cooked spinach and had Channa Masala over brown rice.


Today was a very simple menu - we had just six people, but it all worked out well and amazingly we were very much on time.

Green Salad

1 lb Spring Mix from Shoprite
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 onion
2 tbsp chia seeds
3 tomatoes

1/2/3 dressing with the juice of one lemon and one lime: 1 tbsp maple syrup, 2 tbsp Dijon mustard, and 3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, again plus the juice.

The salad was a hit.

Spinach (large leaf)

1 onion, cut-up fine
4-5 cloves of garlic, cut up fine
1 lb large leaf spinach.

Note that spinach has a lot of moisture, but the stems cook slower than the leaves, so we cut up the stems first.

Browned the onions dry first, until they start to stick and then add in a few tablespoons of water (or broth). After about 5 minutes add in the garlic and the spinach stems and let it go for another five minutes till the stems start to soften. Then add in the leaves, cut in 1" strips. Cook till the leaves are wilted.

As usual, all the people who had never had spinach without oil or butter before were amazed that it tastes so much better this way.

Beet Salad

For good measure we made a beet salad from
3 medium beets
1 medium onion
1 lemon (juice)
1 lime (juice)

Ideally this salad can marinade in the fridge... it is always better the next day. And you can eat it stand-alone or you can mix it in with your green salad.

Chana Masala

Note: For some reason Nutrition Studies spells it channa, with double "n," but I see it mostly spelled with single "n," so I will stick to that.

https://nutritionstudies.org/recipes/main-dish/channa-masala/
https://nutritionstudies.org/es/recipes/plato-principal/chana-masala/

Ingredients

1 15 oz can of chick peas, rinsed and drained

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp whole cumin seeds

1½ tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

½ Tbsp turmeric powder

1-2 tsp chili powder

2 tsp salt ,alt. liquid aminos

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp cilantro, chopped for garnish

--------------

Preparation

1) Heat water in a non-stick pan (medium heat) and add: whole cumin seeds, onions and garlic. Sauté until golden brown.

2) Add tomatoes to mixture and sauté until it starts to form a gravy.

3) Add chick peas along with all remaining ingredients: cumin powder, coriander, turmeric, chili powder, salt, and tomato paste.

4) Mix well, over low-medium heat, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes.

5)  Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro

6) We served it with Brown Rice

We had grapes and cherries for desert, and even some food left over.

In all, our budget was $90 and we spent about $52.19, so we donated $37.81 to St. Helena's.

Swiss Chard with Carrots

Swiss Chard with Carrots

Note:

This recipe brings out the flavor and the color of the chard like nobody's business.
For the garlic, use organic if you can get it.

 

Ingredients

• 1lb Swiss chard stems sliced small 1/2" leaves sliced in 1¨ strips
• 2 onions cut-up fine
• 3 chilis, sliced fine
• 1 jalapeno, sliced fine, seeded
• 1-large or three small carrots sliced thin
• 5 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
• 5 pieces of turmeric, or 1 tsp of turmeric powder

Preparation

1. 1 - onions, chili's, jalapeno cut up fine (jalapeno seeded), 5 mins at 425F (med/high)
2. 2 - add the garlic and turmeric, 5 mins at 425F adding a small amount of water (2-3 tablespoons) to keep it liquid
3. 3 - add in the sliced carrot, and the cut-up Chard stems, a little more water 
4. 5 mins at 275F (medium/low)
5. 4 - add in the leaves on top, 10 more mins at 275F

enjoy!