Kimchee (Kimchi) and Quinoa

 Craving something easy, salty and spicy for lunch this afternoon, I reheated some leftover quinoa (from yesterday's stuffed eggplants) and topped it with a little Korean super food, Kimchee. It was little party in my mouth! Kimchee is another first food for me this year. Beware, if you don't like cabbage or spicy flavors, you probably won't like this pickled condiment (No one in my family likes this dish except me.) I've only tasted one brand, Banyan Foods Kim Chee, which is the one sold at our local grocery store, HEB. I'll definitely be whipping this one up for myself again soon.

Quinoa & Sundried Tomato Stuffed Eggplant

My husband's Japanese eggplants have been very productive this summer, so this is the second stuffed eggplant recipe I've prepared this year. It was so good! I really like using quinoa in this recipe since it's a complete protein. The recipe I got my inspiration from calls for goat cheese....even when I was a meat eater, I hated goat cheese. I prepared these without the cheese, but you could add a little Parmesan if you're not vegan.

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 small eggplants
• 2 cups cooked quinoa (I cook it in boxed organic vegetable broth for flavor.)
• 2 green onions, chopped thin
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 c chopped sundried (in oil) tomatoes
• small bunch of flat leaf parsley and basil, chopped
• olive oil
• salt to taste
• a pinch of red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS:
1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Slice eggplant in half vertically. Place eggplant in colander and sprinkle with salt. Allow eggplant to sit in salt for about 20 minutes for a firmer texture. 

3) Meanwhile, chop the sundried tomatoes, onion, garlic, and herbs.

4) Rinse and dry eggplant.
5) Score eggplant 1/4" from the edge.
6) Scoop out eggplant with a teaspoon.
7) Chop eggplant into small cubes. Place in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil.
8) Add cook quinoa, tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs to eggplant. Salt to taste and add a pinch of red pepper.
9) If you eat cheese, you may want to add about 1/4 c Parmesan to this mixture.
10) Lightly coat the back of each eggplant (skin) with olive oil and place on baking sheet.
11) Generously stuff each eggplant and drizzle with a little more olive oil if you want.
12) Bake for 30-35 minutes. 

Gluten Free Stovetop Mac and "Cheese"

My husband and I have been big meat eaters for 40+ years, but stopped eating meat back in February 2011. Since that time, hubby has lost 45 lbs. Weird, but I haven't lost a pound and remain between 128-130 lbs. which I guess isn't too bad for my height. I admit that there are certain dishes we really do miss....homemade mac n' cheese is one of those dishes. In previous years, I made decadent mac n' cheese with butter, white flour, breadcrumbs, milk, and cheese. I've seen quite a few vegan mac n' cheese recipes in vegan cookbooks that I've ordered and on food blogs, but haven't been brave enough to try one until tonight. Oh my gosh...I had no idea what I was missing. I combined some of the ingredients from Vegan on the Cheap and The Happy Herbivore cookbooks (Both of which I highly recommend.) I made my mac n' cheese gluten free since I'm experimenting with cutting out gluten for two weeks to see how it makes me feel.

1) Boil salted water, and cook 12 oz. brown rice spiral or elbow pasta according to directions. Be careful not to over cook. Drain and rinse with cold water. Return to the pot.
2) In the meantime, whisk together the following ingredients:

• 2 c non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened almond milk.)
• 1/2 c nutritional yeast
• 2 T yellow or white miso paste (I bought ours in the refrigerated section of Basic Foods.)
• 2 T arrowroot powder (You can use gluten free corn starch instead.)
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. paprika
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric 
• 1 tsp. mustard powder
• dash of red pepper and black (or white) pepper

3)  Heat sauce over medium. Stir frequently to avoid scorching on the bottom of your saucepan.
4) Pour sauce over drained pasta and toss.

I served this to my family with pan fried cabbage and tempeh "bacon" (recipe coming later), and there weren't any leftovers tonight.

Southwestern Soup

I adapted this recipe from a wonderful new cookbook I just purchased through Amazon by Robin Robertson, Vegan on the Cheap.
 
Organic Ingredients:
4 large or 5 medium homegrown tomatoes (or 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes if you don't have fresh)
1 small can Rotel tomatoes
1 1/5 cups frozen corn
1 medium chopped white, yellow, or purple onion
1 small chopped green bell pepper
2 15 oz. cans (rinsed and drained) blackeye peas, pinto beans, black beans, or a combination of these
3 cups vegetable broth

Seasonings to taste (If you want more than this, knock yourself out!)
1/2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. paprika
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and fresh ground black pepper 

DIRECTIONS:
1) Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot and saute onion and bell pepper a few minutes. Add garlic and saute another minute.
2) Add fresh, chopped tomatoes and 1 can Rotel tomatoes to the soup pot.  Cook on med. about 15 minutes. If you're not using fresh tomatoes, just add a 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes instead and the Rotel tomatoes at the same time as the following ingredients:
3) Add frozen corn, beans or peas, seasonings, and vegetable broth.
4) Simmer 20-30 minutes until flavors have married. Salt and pepper to taste.

I served this soup over Fritos and sprinkled nutritional yeast on top. A healthier choice would be to serve it over millet, quinoa, brown rice, or organic blue corn tortilla chips. I'm embarrassed to admit that my husband and I ate the entire pot by ourselves in less than 24 hours.

Fried Green Tomato BLT with Remoulade Sauce

I feel like the vegetarian version of Bubba from Forest Gump with all the tomato recipes I'm trying out this summer. This recipe may not exactly be healthy, but it's decadent and delicious!!

 Today for lunch, I veganized Bobby Flay's recipe for Fried Green Tomato BLT's and made my own version of a Remoulade sauce.

Fried Green Tomato Ingredients:
4 green tomatoes (Pick tomatoes when they are as large as a ripened tomato but haven't started turning pink yet. Core and slice about a 1/2 inch thick.)
2 T flax meal (optional)
1 1/2 cup corn meal (Measurement doesn't have to be exact)
1 cup brown rice (We try to avoid white flour, but you could use all purpose flour instead of rice flour.)
1 cup filtered water
safflower oil for frying (Don't use olive oil to fry your tomatoes.)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1) Slice tomatoes. Dry on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2) Mix rice flour and water together in a bowl.
3) Mix flax and corn meals in a separate bowl or plate.

4) Heat 1/4 inch of oil in a skillet (preferably cast iron)
5) Dredge tomato slices in rice/water mixture.
6) Dip both sides of tomato in corn/flax meal mixture and press to make sure the breading sticks.

7) Fry in batches of 4-5 slices about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

8) Assemble tomatoes, vegan bacon (I make my own from Shiitake mushrooms), dark leaf lettuce, and remoulade sauce on sprouted whole grain bread such as Genesis bread.

I'm not a big sandwich eater like my husband, so I eat my BLT (with extra sauce of course) on a bed of lettuce instead.

Vegan Remoulade Ingredients
Whisk the following ingredients together:
1 cup Veganaise
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 cup or small handful of fresh chopped parsley
1 T horseradish
juice of half a lemon
1 chopped green onion (white and green parts)
1 clove garlic, minced (or powdered garlic)
couple dashes of Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp. cajun seasoning such as Tony's or Slap Ya Mama
1 T chopped dill pickle
1 tsp ketchup
salt and black pepper (fresh ground is always best) to taste
**Most remoulade recipes also include capers, but we don't care for them so I leave them out.

Homemade Tomato Sauce

My husband got a little carried away planting four different varieties of tomatoes this year, and now we have an abundance of tomatoes in our organic garden!! We've given a lot of them away to neighbors and friends, but they're still coming "out of our ears!" We don't have a stand up freezer, and I don't know how to can yet, so I'm trying to come up with recipes to use up this bumper crop before they ruin. Yesterday, I made a platter of yummy vegan fried green tomatoes and a large batch of fresh salsa. Today, I made marinara sauce that I adapted from several different recipes I found on the Internet. I served this sauce over pumpkin raviolis.

Ingredients - organic of course
olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
5-6 chopped fresh tomatoes, with the juices
1/4-1/2 cup dry red wine (I used Natura Organic Carmenere that I found at our local HEB grocery store)
pinch of dried red pepper flakes
1/8 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley
1/8 cup or small handful fresh chopped basil
sea salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 envelope Tree of Life stevia (optional)

Directions:
Drizzle about 2 T olive oil in a large pot and heat over medium. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook until soft, about 5 minute. Add garlic and cook another minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and their juices and bring to a boil. Add all seasonings except basil and parsley (if you're using dried, you can go ahead and add them now) and lower heat. Simmer for at least an hour mashing the tomatoes with a potato masher so the sauce will be less chunky.

Stir in the chopped parsley and basil. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Sauce will keep up to a week in the refrigerator. Garnish with Parmesan if you eat cheese or nutritional yeast.

Southern Style Crowder Peas and Cornbread

It's that time of the year in the south where we love eating our peas, okra, and tomatoes out of the garden! In the past, I always added lots of bacon and sometimes ham hock to peas just like my grandmother taught me. No more bacon or ham for our family! Today, I cooked up a pot of animal free peas, vegan cornbread, and vegan fried green tomatoes. Yummy!

Ingredients (organic if possible)
32 oz. fresh crowder or purple hull peas (frozen work fine if you don't grow them and can't find them at a farmer's market)
2 med. tomatoes - chopped (preferably home grown)
1 small green bell pepper - chopped
1/3 of a white, yellow, or purple onion - chopped
5 okra pods, sliced thin (or about a half cup of frozen sliced okra)
salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and a few red pepper flakes to taste
32 fl. oz. organic vegetable broth
seasoning mixture such as Mrs. Dash

Directions:
In a large pot, add vegetable broth, peas, and enough water to cover peas about an inch above them. I add the vegetables directly to the pot instead of sauteing them first, but you can saute the okra, tomatoes, and onions first in a little olive oil if you prefer. (I think most people like to eat their okra, onions, and tomatoes separate from their peas, but I just throw a little directly into our peas.) Season with salt, garlic powder, black and red pepper, and seasoning blend. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to med/low, and simmer 40-45 minutes or until peas are tender. This is excellent served over vegan cornbread with vegan fried green tomatoes (recipe coming soon.)

I tweaked this cornbread recipe found on the Post Punk Kitchen Blog. I used rice flour instead of white flour, almond milk instead of soy, safflower oil instead of canola, and added an extra tablespoon of maple syrup. It's certainly not my grandma's cornbread, but it was still good.

Cornbread Ingredients:
2 cups organic cornmeal
1 cup organic brown rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup safflower oil
3 T maple syrup
2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp raw apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
Coat a large iron skillet with an oil that safe in high temperatures such as safflower oil. Preheat your skillet in a 350 degree F. oven while your mixing the cornbread. In a medium bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together: almond milk,vinegar, syrup, oil and set aside. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients: cornmeal, rice flour, baking powder and salt. Pour the wet ingredient into the dry and mix. Carefully, take preheated skillet out of the oven, and pour batter into it. Bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Slice and serve with peas spooned on top.

Stuffed Eggplant

We planted eggplant for the first time this year in our organic garden, so I've been trying out new recipes this summer. I found this recipe for grilled stuffed eggplant at Rodale.com and "veganized" it for lunch today.

INGREDIENTS:
4 small eggplants
1/8 c. nutritional yeast
1/4 c. Daiya mozzarella vegan cheese
1/4 c chopped white or yellow onion
1/4 c Panko bread crumbs (check the label and make sure there are no hydrogenated oils in it)
4 cloves minced garlic
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
a few red pepper flakes
1 chopped organic tomato - Or, three Roma tomatoes (I removed most of the seeds and juice before chopping)
Shiitake "bacon" (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1) Slice eggplant in half.
2) Salt eggplant and allow to drain in a colander for about 10-15 minutes.
3) In the meantime, place the other ingredients in a mixing bowl.
4) Wash and dry eggplant.
5) Cut a grid of 1/2" squares in each of the eggplant halves and use a spoon to remove the flesh. Be careful not to cut through the skin.
6) Add all of the eggplant flesh (except one eggplant half that you can save for something else) to the cheese/breadcrumb mixture.
7) Place eggplant in a baking dish and stuff with the mixture.
8) Drizzle with olive oil.
9) The Rodale version of the recipe calls for you to cook the stuffed eggplant in a foil baking pan outside on the grill, but I baked ours at 400 for 20 minutes in the oven.

Pineapple Salsa

Tomato salsa on organic tortilla chips is still my favorite snack, but this pineapple salsa (adapted from Cooking Light magazine) is a refreshing change.

Combine the following ingredients:

1 fresh pineapple chopped (I sliced and grilled the pineapple first, but you don't have to grill it for this salsa)
about 1/3 cup chopped red onion
1 handful chopped fresh cilantro
1 T fresh lime juice
1 serrano chile, seeded and minced
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. red pepper
1/4 tsp. cumin

Serve on organic chips.

Homemade Deodorant

My husband and I are trying to turn our clocks "back" to a simpler more natural way of living without chemicals on or in our bodies. Last fall, I began experimenting with making homemade toothpaste, lotion, lip balm, shampoo, and deodorant. I tried using store bought natural deodorants such as Toms and Arm and Hammer, but they broke me out. I've also tried several different recipes I found online, but they broke us out in rashes after a few days. Obviously all bodies all react differently, but these are two recipes that I finally came up with that my husband and I are able to use daily. These deodorants don't stop our bodies completely from sweating like potentially harmful antiperspirants do, but they keep us fairly dry and do a  great job in naturally preventing body odor. I alternate these two deodorants every other day, while my husband uses the cream version (deodorant #2 daily). Our teenagers still use antiperspirants that are full of chemicals and perfumes - We haven't been successful in getting them to try out our all natural deodorants yet.

DEODORANT #1
Ingredients:

• raw apple cider organic vinegar (such as Bragg's)
• arrowroot powder
• non-aluminum baking soda (I use Bob's Red Mill) 
• Optional: a few drops of essential oil such as orange or lavender

Directions:
Mix 3 parts arrowroot powder with 1 part baking soda. You can add a few drops of essential oil to the powder mixture, but I don't.  Store in a sealed container/jar. Swab clean underarms with raw apple cider vinegar with a cloth or cotton ball (the vinegar smell dissipates). Then pat on the powder mixture.

DEODORANT#2 

This deodorant makes a cream that should be stored in a sealed container or jar.
Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons shea butter
• 1 Tablespoon Bob's Red Mill aluminum free baking soda (I've read that Arm and Hammer is processed with aluminum - not sure if that's accurate, but I don't want to take the chance.)
• 4 Tablespoons organic arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)
• 1 Tablespoon unrefined organic cocoa butter (I buy the 4 oz. containers  online at Mountain Rose Herbs)
• 1 teaspoon organic extra virgin coconut oil
• 1 capsule vitamin E
• Optional: a couple drops of essential oil such as orange

Directions:

Melt the butters and oil in a Pyrex measuring cup or glass set inside of a pot of water until the oils are  clear (or a double boiler).

Take off of the heat. Snip the end off of a vitamin E capsule, and squeeze the liquid into the melted oils. Stir in the baking soda and arrowroot powder.  If you add a few drops of essential oil such as lavender, orange, etc. then stir it in last, and pour into a jar. My husband is 6" 2" - 230 lbs. and loves this recipe (he always smells great to me.)

***Please note that diets high in plants and low in processed foods, meats, caffeine, and alcohol have also been shown to reduce body odor.