Naked Burritos!

Ask your children to leave the room because these burritos gots no clothes!

If you dumped out a Chipotle burrito like a burlap sack this is what you’d get a bowl of. . . except my rice is better.

The topping is essentially the same as the taco-tater recipe (plus beans) but the rice is what makes this meal truly great. I shall pass it on to you because I feel a need to share it. This recipe is supped to make four servings but I don’t know who could eat that much rice at once. Really this makes 6-8 servings in my opinion. . .maybe even more.

Coconut Herb Rice

2T olive oil
2 3/4c jasmine or basmati rice
3c coconut milk
1t salt
1 bay leaf
2T cilantro, minced
2T mint, minced
2 green chilies, seeded and minced
the juice of 1-3 fresh limes (I like mine REALLY limey)

1. soak the rice in water for 1 hour. drain and rinse.

2. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large pot. Add the rice and sauté until translucent.

3. Add the coconut milk, salt, and bay leaf and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid has absorbed.

4. Put a tight-fitting lid on the pot, turn the heat to its lowest setting and cook for 10 more minutes.

5. pull out the bay leaf and gently fold in the herbs and lime juice.

 

This rice is SUPER good. So good, in fact that I’m using it for naked burritos today AND I’m making a tofu stir fry with peanut sauce to have on it later this week! YEAY!

Thoroughly Satisfying

Sunday morning. The heat is finally broken after a fabulous rain. The sun is out and the world feels  a little more peaceful up here in the tree house.

The big question was what to have for breakfast.

Mr. Crow ate some eggs on toast about 2 hours ago and I was still left without a clue.

I contemplated a smoothie, my usual choice, but the blender was still in need of washing so I nixed that right off.

Do I have waffles? No, I really want something fresh.

Fruit on waffles? No, I don’t really want any grain right now.

What to do, what to do. . .

Then, suddenly, it came to me! I’d seen a recipe for a salad recently that sounded too good to pass up. I checked the clock, because, for some reason, I didn’t want to eat this too early.

Ho-kay! Now that you’re tempted, here’s the recipe:

1 avocado, sliced
6 strawberries, sliced
2t lemon juice
2t balsamic vinegar
black pepper

1. Put the strawberries and avocado in a bowl.
2. Drizzle the vinegar and lemon juice over everything.
3. Toss gently.
4. Sprinkle fresh black pepper over it.

Shove this in in your face right now for it is the BEST THING EVAAAARRRRRR!

Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles from Vegan Yum Yum

As the title states, this is a picture of the Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles from Vegan Yum Yum. If you haven’t picked up this cook book yet, I highly recommend that you do with haste! These recipes can stand up to the most biased of omnivorous palettes. For instance, this cool, creamy dish was really a delight on one of the hottest days of the year. The only heat applied was to boil the noodles and I didn’t have to stand there and roast the whole time, thank goodness. Also, I used udon noodles instead of fettuccini or whatever the recipe calls for so they only took 3 minutes to cook instead of the usual 8-10. I made one other change as well, instead of the regular green cabbage this recipe calls for, I used a small nappa cabbage which I like much better for its delicate texture and frizzy appearance. This would be a great dish to take to a picnic or potluck as it doesn’t have anything that is overly temperature sensitive and it’s meant to be served cool or at room temp. I can hardly wait to have it for lunch tomorrow!

The Weekly Catch-Up

Last night I made what I consider an “all American” style meal. Those are Gardien BBQ skewers, riced potatoes and the corn from the CSA. It was super-filling and I felt kind of hyper after eating all of those carbs in one go but Mr. Crow really seemed to like it. mmmm.

 

So, I’m sure you saw all that lovely squash we got. I wasn’t really sure quite what to do with it all since we never really ate a whole lot of it growing up that wasn’t breaded and fried. This is what I came up with:

I made some “sausage” from a package of tempeh I had in the fridge (see Vegan With a Vengeance for the recipe), then I took a vegetable peeler and sliced a yellow squash and a zucchini into ribbons and sautéed it over very high heat just until it was cooked a little. I poured arribiata sauce over all of it an called it dinner! Another winner with Mr. Crow but I kept biting my lip (TMJ) so I didn’t enjoy myself very much.

A squash application that I REALLY really liked was my zucchini bread except I used used yellow squashes instead of zucchini.(Is that right? “squashes”? “Squash” is a funny word. squash squash squash) I also used Ener-G instead of eggs and I left out the nuts because Mr. Crow is not a fan.

I couldn't even manage a picture of the full loaf before I started eating it. . .

I forgot to take a picture of today’s haul because I was preoccupied with getting the periphery grocery shopping and cleaning done but I’ll take pictures as I go along instead so don’t feel deprived, okay!

The Last Of The Swiss Chard Soup

Sorry about not posting this sooner but I was out of town Saturday and the internet was down Sunday. however, I’m sure you’ll be glad you were patient because this post has some Wonderful things in it.

I’ll start with the soup and work backward, okay?

So Saturday I was visiting my mom and she showed me her Volumetrics cook book. Inside, there was a picture of a swiss chard soup that looked SUPER-yummy. So I used a little imagination and recreated it this evening for dinner. You even get the recipe since I (kind of) made it up as I went along. This soup turned out hearty and totally satisfying. I thought the amount of spice was perfect but if you’re a spice-wimp feel free to leave it out.

Swiss Chard and Garbanzo Soup

1/2lb. pasta shapes (I used brown rice tubatini)
2-3T olive oil
1 small onion, minced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 - 1/2 red pepper flake
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups of vegetable broth
1T tomato paste
1T Braggs Liquid Aminos
1 bunch of swiss chard, stemmed and chopped
Nutritional yeast for sprinkling

1. Put a pot of water on to boil and cook the pasta according to the package directions.

2.  Meanwhile, heat the oil in your favorite soup pot. Add the onion and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Add the garbanzos and red pepper flake and sauté for another 2 minutes.

3. Pour in the broth. Stir in the tomato paste and Braggs and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Add the swiss chard and simmer for  more minutes.

5. Turn off the heat, add the pasta, and serve with a generous sprinkle of nutritional yeast.

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Yesterday, Mr. Crow picked up our CSA! Look what we got!

Nothing too exotic but I’ll see what I can do about that!

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Last Saturday I showed you a picture of my zephyrs. Today I show you a picture of what I did with them:

So, this is the Hurry-Up Alfredo from Vegan Yum Yum but I added about 1/2 a cup of sundried tomatoes to it. What a discovery! I tossed that with some whole wheat linguini and we topped it with some breaded and baked zephyr. This was super-excellent and a definite “keeper”.

Blueberry Muffin-Bread Thing

Well, I used up about 25% of my blueberries on this magnificent bread/muffin. I still have SO MANY left but I don’t mind, I might just make 2 of this sweet baby.

I found this recipe but I had to make a change because I ran out of Earth Balance. So, instead of EB I used canola oil and only 3 of the 4 ounces called for. If you’re going to go this route drizzle the oil in a little at a time while using a fork to mix/fluff/chop up the bigger crumbs of oil until the mixture looks like home made breadcrumbs. If it comes together before you add it all STOP! If you think it needs more, go for it. Just remember you’re going for breadcrumbs.

The recipe is really straightforward except for a few things for those of us here in America. A lot of the ingredients are given in weight, which is fine if you have a kitchen scale but the amount of berries it called for was a unit of measure I’d never heard of: the punnet. So, for those of you who may go on to try this recipe, a punnet of blueberries is 150 grams. YEAY!

Tofu Steak and Swiss Chard Gratin

That’s what i made for dinner tonight.

Generally, it was a hit. I used this recipe for the tofu marinade and this recipe for the swiss chard. You know you want to try it. Even if you don’t care for tofu too much this marinade kicks butt and you gotta put it on SOMETHING!

A note from Mr. Crow

Hello, World.  I am Crow Jane’s other half.  You can call me Mr. Crow, though as you might have guessed, it’s not my real name.  I make an appearance here because I’ve been mentioned previously and figured it’s about time for introductions.  Also, I’m slowly learning how to cook, so I’ve decided to post a lovely recipe for you.  Credit goes to The American Vegan Kitchen, page 157 for the marvelous pizza dough and to our blog mistress’ mother for the toppings.

So, our CSA, Wayward Seed, has been providing us with an abundance of swiss chard.  Now, growing up in a family where everything in the fridge, freezer, or cupboards came in box, can, or carton, I didn’t know what swiss chard even was.  Is it like lettuce?  Spinach?  Rhubarb?  What is it good for?  Why is it so colorful?  Why are so many people insane advocates of it?  I have no idea and still don’t.  But since we had so much of it, I had to do something. 

I emailed Jane’s mother, who was quick in providing the following recipe, slightly modified.

 

Swiss Chard Pizza

Preheat oven to 350.  Meanwhile, boil the swiss chard and squeeze dry.

Fry garlic and pine nuts in olive oil until toasty, careful not to burn.  Add swiss chard and separate as you stir constantly over medium heat, as the chard will have gotten clumpy.  Season with salt, black pepper & crushed red pepper.

Roll out pizza dough and brush lightly with olive oil.  Top with swiss chard mix.  Bake about 20 minutes, or until the dough starts to brown slightly. 

It’s super simple to make, even for a novice like me.  The best part is that Crow Jane liked it enough to let me post it here.  I think I may stop by again at some point to share more beginner dishes in the future! 

CSA Saturday

So I’ve been cooking but I haven’t been writing as usual. Perhaps I’ll just write on Saturdays from now on. Let’s just go with that.

So, this week, on Thursday, I had the realization that I was going to have to go pick up MORE fruits and veggies today (Saturday) and, that I’d not used up what I’d gotten before. uh-oh. So I went on the internet to see what i could do with the rat tail radishes they gave us and found this recipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have most of the ingredients so I had to improviser a little. Here’s my version:

Moongre ki Subzi
(Radish pods)
Serves 4

a literal hand full of fresh radish pods (about 64 g)
1 medium potato 
pinch of powdered ginger
pinch of powdered garlic
1T tomato paste
1 T oil
pinch of powdered cumin
pinch of turmeric
pinch of coriander powder
dash of chilli powder
salt
About 1/2 c water

Rinse the radish pods. Top and tail them. Snap into 1-1 1/2″ lengths. Cube the potatoes.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the prepared vegetables. Toss to coat with oil. Add the seasoning and mix to coat. Let the seasonings heat until they become fragrant. pour in the water and stir. Cover and cook till potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes.

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I also had some beets I couldn’t decide what to do with. I snipped off the greens right away but I had those to deal with too. Look how pretty they are!

I knew I wanted to keep the leaves and roots together and I found this recipe. I didn’t, however, want to use pasta. Instead I cooked some quinoa in some veggie broth and used that instead.

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That pretty much brings us to last night. Mr. Crow has suggested that I lay off wheat for a while since it makes my stomach upset ant, yet, I eat it anyway because it’s easy and cheap. Anyway. We usually have “burrito night” at least one a week but it’s hard to make burritos without tortillas. Thus the Taco-Tater was born.

 

Taco-Taters

For the potatoes:
   2 russet potatoes
   2t canola oil
   kosher salt
For the filling:
   2T canola oil
   1 yellow onion
   1 poblano pepper
   1 clove of garlic
   1/2 lb veggie ground
   taco seasoning
   Daiya cheddar
   Tofutti sour cream
   hot sauce of choice

1. preheat the oven to 350*. Wash the potatoes and poke them with a fork. Coat them in oil, then roll them in salt. Place them directly on the middle rack and bake them for an hour.

2. 15 minutes before the potatoes are done, or 45 minutes later whichever you prefer, Thinly slice up your onion and poblano while you heat the oil to medium-high in a big sauté pan. Toss in the veggies and let them soften. Next, crush the garlic clove into the pan and stir it all about. Once the onions and pepper begin to brown, toss in the ground and stir it all together. Follow the directions for your taco seasoning and you're good to go on that.

3. Pull the potatoes out of the oven and poke a line across the top with a fork press the ends towards the middle to break the potato open and fill it up with the taco filling. Top with the Daiya, Tofutti, and hot sauce and EAT!

Here’s another picture for you!

 

And, finally, some pictures of today’s pick-up: