Balsamic Roasted Chickpea Salad

First, roast the chickpeas.

All you need is a toaster oven, 1 can (no salt) garbanzo beans drizzled in lightly in olive oil, balsamic, salt/pepper. I roasted it @450 convection bake. Watch until a few start to pop, and the skin is somewhat crunchy. 

Plate full of rinsed/washed fresh kale

chopped avocado

For the dressing:

50/50 parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar

1 medium minced garlic clove

1/2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp tahini

A few drops of Bragg's Liquid Aminos

a pinch of cumin, salt, pepper

energy balls part 2!

I have discovered the best combination yet.

Dried cranberries
Raw cashews
Cacao nibs
Vanilla
Drizzle of agave syrup
Pinch of salt

It's just that simple.

I rolled half of them in in hemp seeds, and left the other half naked.

Nutrients at it's best!

You can also choose to soak the cashews before making this, as they are easiest digested and less acidic than without a good soaking.

For this particular batch, I added BEET POWDER. Yeah. Powder.

I found some at Down to Earth and thought of making pink pancakes! (I made those but didn't feel the need to post them because they didn't turn out delicious like I assumed) But adding a pinch of beet powder to these energy balls will give it a deep burgandy color (no beet taste).

Rainy days

Rainy days + fall = ...?
SOUP
and even better

Spicy Pumpkin and Coconut Curry Soup

1 cup of cubed tempeh

1/3 cup of chopped onion

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup white wine

1/2 lemon grass stalk (cut into four 2 inch pieces)

~1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger

water

3/4 can of pureed pumpkin (or 3/4 cup fresh pureed pumpkin, even better!)

1 cup coconut milk (I used Silk brand coconut milk, it's a lot less fat and a thinner consistency than the canned coconut milk)

* You can sub the coconut milk for soy milk as well (If you want to omit the coconut flavor).

1 Tbsp cumin

1 Tbsp curry powder

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Squeeze of fresh lime

2 fresh kale leaves (I used dinosaur kale)

salt/pepper

Fresh cilantro for garnish

Step 1 sautee onion and tempeh in olive oil until onions are somewhat translucent and tempeh is a little bit browned. (You can also add garlic at this step.) 

Step 2 add white wine, and cook down. Once wine is cooked down, add a little bit of water and let it steam (put the lid on), because you want the tempeh to be fully cooked.

Step 3 add lemon grass, and ginger. Immediately add the coconut milk and pureed pumpkin. Let it simmer for about 5-10 min on med/low heat. The longer the better, so you can even go up to 20 if you let it go on low heat.

Step 4 Add all spices, and let it simmer again, just about 5 minutes this time. Once the 5 minutes are up, add some fresh squeezed lime. It's a perfect compliment!

Step 5 Add salt/pepper to taste. Once it's to your liking, the last step is to add the fresh kale. Make sure this is the absolute last thing you do because you don't want the kale to turn brown. Keeping it green guarantees maximum nutritional content. You don't want to kill it with heat.

Step 6 Take out the lemon grass stems, and serve up and enjoy with fresh cilantro for garnish!

It's so good, you'll probably die. Just warning you.

For the Love of Tahini

Not a big firm tofu fan.
I bought some to try this "vegan cheese" idea a friend of mine showed me. I'll show you in another post!
Anyway, I had half a block left... What to make for dinner...
Looked in my fridge and I had some tahini, and some really old miso that's rather questionable (but I reasoned with myself that it's fermented to begin with).
This recipe is stolen from work >:)

Tahini Miso Tofu Salad

5 oz super firm tofu

2 Tbsp tahini

1 Tbsp miso

1 Tbsp flax oil

~1/3 cup blanched kale

~1/3 cup fresh purple cabbage 

1 tsp honey**

sesame seeds for garnish

**I used honey to even out the saltiness of my miso. This isn't necessary if your miso isn't super salty like mine was.

First I cut the tofu into small, thin squares. You don't have to cut it like this, it's just how I did it. (It will taste the same cut into any fashion!)

Next I blanched the kale in some hot water, and immediately put it into ice cold water. It's important to not expose it to the hot water for too long because it will loose it's nutrients and become brown and gross. Putting it into ice water directly after will stop the cooking process.

Once I toweled off the kale from any excess water, I put it in a mixing bowl with the tofu, added the miso, tahini, flax oil, and purple cabbage. 

Make sure to mix thoroughly with your hands, you don't want any big clumps of miso!

Make sure to do a taste test! This will determine whether you'll need the honey (agave is okay too) or not.

I served it with some fresh Manoa lettuce from my yard and garnished with toasted sesame seeds. 

Enjoy!

Brain Food

Midterms....
ugh.
How can you eat healthy and conveniently, when you're studying all the time (not having a life)?
It's a sad dilemma.
The best thing to do is to eat to FEED YOUR BRAIN! Stay clear from processed food, sugar, and especially... excessive caffeine.

That last one is unrealistic for me, I'm a coffee fiend! 

Anyway.

Dark leafy greens are loaded with vitamins (A, B6, C and K) and minerals (iron, calcium, potassium, folate, and magnesium). Kale is a great source of these, along with carotenoids and flavonoids which are antioxidants that slow aging, support a healthy immune system, and most importantly, assist in healthy brain function! Eating an abundance of these during studying will help you from getting sluggish and with help you keep alert so you can retain information better!

Another great thing to consume for "brain food" are healthy fats (omegas 3, 6 and 9). Your brain is made of mostly fat, and needs more of what it's made of to keep functioning properly! Not to confuse processed fats and oils (avoid butter, lard, shortening, and vegetable oil/corn oil), "healthy fats" are in foods such as nuts, salmon, eggs, and avocados. Eating these healthy fats come with a load of health benefits besides healthy brain function, but consuming healthy fat with dark leafy greens assists in better nutrient absorption.

Here's a simple recipe to get everything you need to keep that brain going.

Toasty Spiced Almonds

1 cup raw almonds

3 tablespoons coconut oil

4-5 heaping tablespoons of nutritional yeast

spices of your choice (I used cumin, turmeric, cayenne, and garlic salt)

Heat oil in a frying pan, add almonds and toast slightly, add nutritional yeast and spices. Simple, fast, and easy!

You can also do this with some fresh kale. Sautee with the same ingredients! Delicious and nourishing.

I packed myself some apple cinnamon bars from the bulk section at my local health food store, some tahini, and the toasty spiced almonds. Travels easily, and doesn't have to stay cold or anything. Especially when your bag is full of text books and notes. 

This was my lunch for midterm line-up break that I had. (Trig/college algebra midterm and Microbiology midterm back to back!) Kept me satisfied so I could stay focused for the day!

I'm Back!

My apologies for being absent so long... This semester has been kicking my ass!
I decided to take a break and pick up posting on the blog again... I missed it :)

So tonight I took this recipe from The Vegan Stoner, which is the cutest recipe blog I have ever bumped into! They make really simple, cheap, and easy vegan recipes, but they display all of the information in such a cute way, with hand-drawn pictures!

It's called Falafel Pie. Falafel? Pie? In one? Yes!

So, I just bought some falafel mix from the bulk section at my local health food store. Mixed 1 cup of falafel mix with 1/2 cup of H2O, and pack it down in a pan after oiling it down with some olive oil. Once that's done, bake for 12 minutes at 350.

Next, I chopped up some fresh herbs from my garden (Dill and Italian parsley). 

While that was baking, I chopped up cucumber, kalamata olives, and cherry tomatoes.

I also blended up the yogurt dressing.

After the 12 minutes, I took it out, drizzled some olive oil because it was lookin like it needed some love, sprinkled the feta cheese and drizzled some tahini on it and put it back in for 6 minutes.

Once the 6 minutes were done, I put the cucumber, tomatoes, olives and the yogurt dressing on top. Feel free to garnish with more feta/tahini/herbs/pepper/etc.

Taaadaa!

Falafel Pie

1 cup falafel mix

1/2 water

olive oil

cucumbers

tomatoes (doesn't have to be cherry tomatoes, that's all I had)

kalamata olives

~1/4 cup feta cheese

2 table spoons tahini

pepper to taste

Yogurt-Herb Dressing

3/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt (Greek or regular, just depends on how thick you want it)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon

1/4 cup fresh dill

1/4 cup fresh parsley (Italian or regular)

1 small clove of garlic

salt & pepper to taste

A wonderful marriage of hot and cold.

What to do with a bunch of bread scraps?

At work, we cut off the crusts of the vegan ciabatta bread we get for the sandwiches. (To anally make them all the same size.) Naturally, when I see a bunch of food going to waste I don't hesitate to make it my own and find something to do with it. In fact, if they're throwing away jars that once held delicious tahini, I even take those home, in hopes to reuse it!

So what to do with a bunch of strips of bread?? 

Croutons.. Bread pudding... Bread sticks?

So I made some French toast sticks! They're "almost vegan" French toast strips, topped with a home made cherry compote.

(Quantities depend on how much bread you're using.)

Step one: Soak bread in a mixture of egg, milk (I used almond milk), ground up chia seeds, agave syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg. Make sure that bread is completely saturated, to the point where the bread is just about to fall apart but still in tact. 

Step two: Slab some Earth Balance (vegan butter substitute) or regular butter onto a frying pan, and let it melt.

Step three: Place french toast sticks on the pan and cook untill slightly browned.

Pretty simple hmm?

Next  I cut up some fresh (about 10) cherries and turned the pain on high and cooked with a splash of water, a couple teaspoons of coconut sugar, about a teaspoon of agave syrup, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and a little bit of lemon zest and cooked let it simmer until most of the water evaporated and it formed a jam like consistency.

Top with some honey, maple syrup, or whatever you like.