Kale-O-Rama

I'm not a big raw foods kind of gal.  I tend to go more towards cooked vegetables, soups and grains.  But every once in a while, particularly in the summer, I get massive cravings for super fresh raw veggies.  A kale salad is my favorite answer to that craving.

I've written about raw kale salads before, but this one turned out so delicious that I have to share it, too.
As I prepped this salad, I was inspired by both the super yummy dijon-marinated kale salad that my raw-for-two-and-a-half-months buddy Melissa had at Sacred Chow in NYC and the kale and golden beet salad that's been brightening up the Linden Hills Co-op deli lately.  This is kind of a hybrid of those, with a crazy amount of ginger.

Gingered Kale Salad
1 bunch raw kale, stems removed and chopped
1 golden yellow beet, peeled and grated
1-2 inches of ginger root, peeled and finely grated
1 Tbsp. dijon mustard
2-3 Tbsp. umeboshi plum vinegar
1 Tbsp. tahini
2 Tbsp. flax oil

Massage kale until it turns bright green and softens.  Combine the kale with the grated beet in a seal-able container.  In a little bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients until smooth.  Pour dressing over the kale and beet salad and shake it all up in your sealed container.  I like to marinate this salad overnight or at least a few hours before serving.  I took this salad in my lunch box all week without it getting soggy or weird!  Kale is amazing!

Gardein Strips and Kale Chips

Sometimes I need food really fast (but not fast food).  Today I was famished after grocery shopping, so I headed home and popped some of these Gardein strips into the toaster oven.  I first heard about these strips in The Conscious Cook by Tal Ronnen.   These are pretty new at the co-op and so far I've only moderately enjoyed their products.  I thought the buffalo style nuggets were weird and the sauce was like overly spiced ketchup.  

These strips are really tasty, though!  While not organic, they do use non-GMO soy and I can recognize and pronounce every single ingredient listed on the package! These are great when you need some serious protein really quickly.

I served them with homemade ketchup and kale chips.  If you haven't made kale chips before, then go get a bunch of kale right now and preheat your oven to about 450.  Rip off the stem of the kale and lay it in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Spray with olive oil and drizzle with tamari, Bragg's or umeboshi plum vinegar.  Or sprinkle with salt.  Then bake for about 6-10 minutes or until the kale is crispy.  Then sit yourself down and eat an entire bunch of kale.  This is so quick and so easy.  I think even kale-haters would love these chips.

Beans, Greens, Rice

Just a quick note about dinner last night because it was so scrumptious...and because it was also my breakfast this morning and my lunch.  

Even though this dinner was really just beans and rice with some greens, it felt kinda fancy.  The risotto had lots of red peppers, fennel seed, peas and white wine (loosely based on the Fennel Breakfast Risotto in the Vegan Brunch cookbook).  I forgot to soak my cannellini beans in advance and there's no way I'd cook my beans without soaking them, so I picked up a couple of cans at the co-op and simmered them with sun-dried tomatoes, homegrown dried sage and lots of garlic and lemon.  They ended up tasting like they had simmered all day- very flavorful!  Kale's on sale this week, so I picked up a couple of big bunches of lacinato and just sauteed them with garlic and tamari.

The kids especially loved the risotto and Mike really liked it all mixed together (of course).  I pan-fried the risotto with some vegan sausage for breakfast and it was pretty awesome.  This is a meal I could eat frequently.

Election Night Comfort Food

It's a tense night tonight.  We're big Obama fans in this house, so we're huddled around CNN right now.  Even the boys are cheering every time a "blue" projection comes in.

I wanted some comfort food tonight- and a lot of vegetables.  So here's what I made:

I put some homegrown carrot chunks in a baking dish with some maple syrup, Earth Balance, ground coriander, celery seed, and salt and pepper.  I baked these with a lid on until they were tender and fragrant.  One boy scarfed these up without any "Oh, I don't like carrots that much" complaint.  The other boy needed some extra onion and sage gravy before consenting to eat them.  

I'm a big fan of super quick tempeh sausage crumbles made in the cast iron skillet.  With fennel, thyme, smoked paprika, cumin, and Bragg's, this is some seriously flavorful tempeh.  I just topped the hot sausage with shredded lacinato kale from the garden and it had enough residual heat to wilt the kale just perfectly.  Yum!

The mashed potatoes turned out really well.  I boiled about 5 lbs. of red potatoes and then whipped them with a cup of plain soy yogurt, some almond milk, chopped green onions, salt, and pepper.  I love the combo of yogurt and green onions, especially in mashed potatoes!  

We'll be breaking out the gluten-free almond blondies later tonight- perhaps in celebration!

A Great Day for a Massage

I wish I had gotten a massage today, but instead I gave one.  To my kale.

Kale is probably my favorite green veggie.  The texture is so versatile- It can stand up to long cooking in a soup or can be eaten raw.  [Not to brag, but...] The kale we grow in the garden is the sweetest I've ever tasted.  So we grow a lot.  Enough to fill out chest freezer with kale to use from November through March.  

There are plenty of different kinds of kale, but these are the ones I see most often: Green curly, Red Russian, and Lacinato or dinosaur kale.  We like to grow all of these in our garden, but the lacinato and curly varieties are my favorite.

Kale doesn't need much added to it to be delicious.  Usually I just add it to a hot pan with a little olive oil and garlic, then sprinkle a bit of tamari over top.  Sometimes I add other ingredients, but this is the simplest recipe I know for amazing greens.  

When it comes to eating kale raw, it's nice to have young tender kale.  I like to chop it very finely and drizzle a little ranch or goddess dressing over it.  Yum!  

If your kale is a bit older, you can just let the raw, chopped kale marinate with the dressing for a few minutes or a few hours to help tenderize it.  Sandor Elix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, recommends "massaging" chopped kale to help break it down.  While the idea of massaging kale might not be an appealing one, it really does tenderize it.  It turns a bright green and gets a similar texture to very lightly cooked kale as the cells are broken down.  

Oh, and kale is super good for you, too.  It has plenty of iron, calcium, fiber, vitamin K, beta carotene, and all that good stuff.  You don't need me to tell you that, though.  Start eating kale and you'll feel how healthy it is for you.  Your body knows.

Kale is in season right now and only gets sweeter as the weather turns cooler.  It will grow right into the frosty season, so keep eating it all winter long!

Sesame Almond Kale Salad

6 leaves of kale (about 1 bunch)

1/4 cup sliced almonds

1-2 Tbsp. grated ginger

3 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil

3 Tbsp. tamari

3 Tbsp. rice vinegar

Remove the thick center stems from the kale and chop into fairly small pieces.  Using your (clean) hands, massage and rub the kale together.  There's no need to be gentle- give it a good deep rub.  When kale is bright green and wilted slightly, set the kale aside in your salad bowl.  

In a small dry skillet, heat the sliced almonds over medium heat.  You want them to slightly toast, but NOT burn.  When lightly toasted, add the grated ginger, sesame oil, tamari, and vinegar.  Stir to combine and heat through.  

Pour hot dressing over the kale and toss to coat.  You can let this salad sit at room temperature to further tenderize the kale, but it'd delicious while the dressing is still warm!

If you like some heat, add red pepper flakes to the salad for additional flavor.

Uh Oh

I think my Mulberry Root Beer is a little closer to Mulberry Beer. I just slammed one after a workout and now I'm feeling a bit tipsy. Our sodas always taste yeasty like beer, but never make you feel like you drank a beer- they just don't ferment long enough. Perhaps my kitchen is just too hot for making non-alcoholic beverages?

Good thing I chowed down on a big bowl of millet and eggplant/yellow squash/onion/tomato/kale with my "soda".

Sicky Yuck Yuck

The past few days have included a lovely assortment of cold and sinus symptoms, cramps/PMS, and pink eye. Lovely.

And I had to get pink eye the week I had 3 separate talks planned for parents/children. The group on Monday night agreed to risk it, but the ECFE groups wisely rescheduled. Smart move since by the time I woke up this morning my eye was swollen shut and I looked REALLY scary.

Luckily, I don't have a ton of other work planned this week and have plenty of sick time. But really, I have a tough time staying home. I either need to be
A: Busy with a "to do" list in hand, cooking dinner, and doing laundry while fielding questions from work OR
B: Sprawled out on the couch with a rootbeer and popcorn and hours of Netfix

There is no in between.

So when I'm sick I vacillate between sleeping/relaxing and attempting to accomplish any number of tasks- and really, I suck at both of these when I'm sick.

Except maybe tonight's dinner.

These are Mary Frances' Light and Fluffy Gluten Free Biscuits with some tempeh sausage, kale, and white bean gravy. I didn't write down measurements or ingredients for any of this, but it was darn good. I did, much to Mike's delight, accidentally add too much salt to the gravy. It was way too much for me and I love salt. But I think I can just thin out the leftover gravy to remedy the situation.

Now I'm off to do another turmeric and fennel eye compress. Hopefully, I'll wake up tomorrow miraculously cured.

Kitten Yoga

When Crystal and I were doing yoga on Sunday, the kitten decided to do yoga with us. Trouble's approach is to try to absorb the benefits of yoga through osmosis- by laying on people doing yoga. Here we are in savasana:
And on the meditation cushion:
Then tonight I was in Viparitta Karani on a block when Trouble jumped up on my belly and started to knead!
I think she's really into this.

And because this is a food blog, not a yoga blog, I'll post up a picture of a great classic macrobiotic dinner we had last week. This is brown rice, adzuki beans cooked with kombu and kale, and a mix of roasted yams and carrots. The leftovers were great in my lunch all week and I felt very virtuous.

Birthday Week

I haven't posted this week, but it's not because I haven't been cooking. Here are some of the highlights:

Coconut Curry Tofu. On Sunday I taught a class on cooking leafy green vegetables and had 3/4 of a can of coconut milk and 1/2 can of diced tomatoes left over. So I mixed them together with some ginger, garlic, lime juice and red pepper flakes and marinated tofu in it overnight. The next day I baked the tofu until crispy, added the marinade to steamed potatoes, carrots, kale, and onions, and served it all over brown rice. I was so impressed that the kids liked this one. It was really rich from the coconut milk and very filling.
This is out of order, but these are the rockin' good pancakes we had on Saturday after our maple syrup tapping adventure. After seeing all that sap, we really needed some pancakes!
I baked these cupcakes for the Cupcake Hero contest. The cupcake batter contains brown rice crisp cereal and the topping is basically the marshmallowy goo that would hold together a rice crispy treat. I call them Rice Crispy TreatCakes. They're gluten-free, too! I used RiceMellow cream for the marshmallows.

And last but not least: My birthday cake.
I didn't decide what flavor I was making until half-way through my birthday. I was thinking about an Italian Cream Cake, but wanted some chocolate somewhere in the cake. Then I saw an apricot almond cake recipe that looked good. So this is kind of a combination of all three ideas.
Vanilla cake with chocolate-cream cheese filling, apricot jam filling, and vanilla-coconut cream cheese frosting.

It was everything I wanted in a birthday cake. And don't feel sorry for me because I baked my own birthday cake- Getting to bake the cake was like a birthday present.

Great Beginnings

When Mike asked yesterday, "What time does Pizza Luce open for brunch?", I immediately started craving their Portabello Florentine. Nevermind that Mike was on the phone with a friend at the time and clearly was not asking ME to go to brunch. I still let my taste buds get the best of me.

So this morning, while he is out with his friend eating a tofu scramble, I'm at home with the kids eating this wheat-tastic breakfast of my dreams. What we have here is a light and fluffy biscuit (I say "light" because they rose so well. Not low in fat by any stretch of the imagination) with pan-fried sausage and kale, topped off with a homemade gruyere sauce. While none of these ingredients is from my own recipe, and therefore not technically original, I think that this dish is more than the sum of its parts. And it's a great way to begin a weekend.



The biscuits are from Vegan with a Vengeance, the Sausage is from Everyday Dish, and the Gruyere is from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.

I'm always doubtful when trying out a "cheese" recipe that attempts to mimic a fine cheese I enjoyed in my pre-gan days. But this time I was truly impressed with the likeness to a nutty, aged gruyere. It complemented the spiciness of the sausage and melted into the soft biscuits like you wouldn't believe. I ate two plates full. So did each of the kids.

The next new beginning of today is the baby lettuce sprouts that popped up in my basement "greenhouse". I wasn't sure the temperature was getting high enough for the seeds to germinate, but here they are! I think I'll go ahead and seed some other plants now that I know


Look close. You can kinda see them.

Highlights of last week's food

Last week was really busy! Every weeknight we had something going on and the weekend was full of more commitments, plus I got a stomach flu. I'm back to normal now and have some pictures to post:
This was, according to Mike and the kids, one of the best meals ever. It was roasted potatoes covered in Yogurt-Ranch sauce, baked tofu smothered in barbecue sauce, and garlicky kale. I thought it was pretty good, but not in the top 10. Mike ranked it in the top 5!

When I planned on making roasted beets I didn't plan on doing anything special with them...but Valentine's day is approaching and I thought, "What the hell- Why not make them heart shaped?". A cookie cutter sliced right through the slices of beets and I roasted them with onions, balsamic vinegar, agave nectar, kosher salt, and black pepper. After they were done I slipped a few leaves of fresh sage into the pan and covered it. This infused the beets with a lovely sage aroma. These were perfect on a salad for lunch!


Below is a Shitaake Dashi from a yoga themed mini-cookbook I did a year
or two ago. It is so simple and comforting. Plus it uses a ton of kelp, so I always feel like I'm getting good minerals from this soup. That's Trouble kitten in the background, chewing on my chopsticks.-00000000000 {the O's were her doing as well}Below is just one of the reasons why I love my sweetie. He always brings home a treat when he comes home from work (we both work at a co-op). This night it was ingredients for a strawberry malt!

Crunchiest Tofu Ever!

Tonight was the first night that I was a bit frustrated by not being able to use wheat. Mike's been feeling much better since quitting all things wheaty- and nearly all gluten. It hasn't really involved too many changes for us, but tonight I really wanted to make a pot pie or seitan and dumplings. I haven't mastered a non-wheat pie crust suitable for pot pie yet and seitan is definitely out, so I was sad. But then I thought- I'll make the creamed kale that I've been craving and mashed potatoes with it! That made me happy again.

I've never had creamed kale before...yet I was craving it. Curious.
One of my favorite things ever is my mom's spinach casserole, which is essentially cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese, every kind of cheese you can imagine, a few eggs, and spinach cooked in a crockpot until it's melty and cheesy and amazing. This creamed kale doesn't hold a candle to mom's spinach, but it was still really good (and probably a good deal healthier for me).

I sauteed onions until golden brown and added tons of kale (ours is frozen from the garden, but fresh would be great).

For the creamy part I mixed up (approximately):

1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup original soy yogurt
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance
1 tsp. garlic powder
3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder

and added it to the kale. I let it simmer until it thickened up and adjusted salt and pepper to taste.
To go with the potatoes and kale I baked some breaded tofu for a super crispy treat. I remembered Kittee's Crispy Crunchy Stuffed Tofu, and thought I'd give rice crispy breading a try. So I marinated tofu strips in nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning, salt, and garlic powder while I went to work out. When I got home I dipped them in a mixture of almond milk and soy yogurt and then covered them in Brown Rice Crisp cereal (smashed to smithereens), nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning, and salt. I baked them at 400 F for about 30-40 minutes.
They were so unbelievably crunchy!!!

Mike said it might be the best tofu he has ever had.

I chose to eat mine dipped in barbecue sauce...an especially delicious one that was free from the co-op because someone else didn't like it. I've been enjoying it for weeks. Tonight, though, I read the ingredients. It has ANCHOVIES! Yuck!

Normally I don't eat anything without reading the ingredients, but I thought Mike had checked them and he thought I had checked them... So that was too bad, because that sauce ROCKED! It pained me to throw it out because barbecue sauce is one of true loves.
It's like:
1. Mike
2. Barbecue Sauce
3. Kitties, bunnies, baby piglets
....

Leftover Enchiladas

Well, the kids seem to be over their illness...But now I have it!
Luckily I didn't post about my dinner last night yet, so here it is:
This is certainly not much to look at, but it was really tasty. I wasn't going to take a picture, but after Mike tasted it he said, "This is the best meal ever and you're not even going to take a picture?!" So I figured I should document it.

I shredded my easy seitan "chicken" from last night and mixed it with onions, green pepper, kale, and a nooch cheeze sauce that was leftover. I rolled that inside of expired corn tortillas, topped with a quick tomatillo salsa, and baked it for really easy leftover enchiladas.

I'm trying to do a better job of using up leftovers and taking the free produce from work. I spent over $500 on groceries last month, and that's not counting the food that Mike bought. It's time to reel in the spending! It's hard, though, when I work at a grocery store (co-op). Everytime I leave work I'm tempted to check out the sales or get a quick snack or go on a huge grocery shopping spree. And we eat like fiends, so at any given time I have about 5 things that we absolutely NEED. Like today when I woke up to find we were out of toilet paper and bread...

When the kids are away...Mushrooms come out to play

Last night I made a really awesome dinner that included mushrooms because the kids were at their mom's (mushrooms are their one hated food). I also needed good food to eat for lunch this week...So here's what I made:

Cream of Mushroom & Rutabaga Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 large red onion, diced
1 1/2 cups rutabaga, peeled and diced
1 large portabello mushroom, sliced
1 1/2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 can Great Northern beans, drained
4 cups broth (I used some expired un-chicken broth)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp fresh sage, minced
2 Tbsp tamari or Bragg's
1/4 cup soy creamer

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium low heat. Add the onions and cook slowly, allowing them to caramelize. Then add the rutabaga, beans, and broth and increase heat to medium high. Simmer until rutabagas are tender (I have no idea how long, I was busy doing other stuff). Mash or puree using an immersion blender. Then return to the stove and add everything except the soy creamer. When mushrooms have cooked down, add salt or whatever it needs until everything tastes awesome. Then remove from heat and stir in the soy creamer. This should make about 4 servings. We used it as gravy, too! (You know a soup is good when it can be used as gravy).

I also cooked the Herbed Scalloped Potatoes and Chickpea Cutlets (really great northern bean cutlets because I didn't have any chickpeas) from Veganomicon. Then I was inspired by the Lemony Green Beans from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and made lemony kale and green beans. Everything tasted awesome for dinner and for lunch today. I hope that it will be just as delicious for lunch tomorrow.

My newfound love for "Ricotta" and longtime love for Ranch

I never cared much for ricotta in my dairy-eating days, but after trying the Cashew Ricotta from Veganomicon: I'm in love. I never thought that adding a little 1/2 cup of cashews to my usual ricotta recipe of food processed tofu, lemon juice, garlic, and basil would transform it into something this amazing. I did vary from the recipe slightly, because I ran out of cashews and had to sub almonds and since the fresh basil has all been made into pesto I used a few frozen cubes of that. I stuffed this "ricotta" into shells and covered it with premade tomato sauce (I admit this shamefully because I have garden tomatoes that need to be used).



On the side we had a raw kale salad with Ranch dressing. I was so excited to see all the baby kale still growing outside. It's been frosty every morning and we've already harvested the bulk of our kale. But at the top of each plant is a few beautiful curly leaves...I gathered them up and added another great find: green garlic!

I know- green garlic is usually just for spring, right?
Somehow we have little garlic babies sprouting up in the garden in November in Minnesota. It's true that I transplanted some green garlic from the community garden to the backyard garden in April. But no matter how careful I am, I can't get it to survive the trauma of being moved and produce a bulb. I guess it survived underground and decided to sprout up again right now. And I am happy to eat it!

I am so impressed that the boys will eat a raw kale salad. It's true that it needs to have a fair amount of ranch dressing on it, but still- I think it's pretty impressive. Most adults wouldn't even try a salad so hearty and deeply green.

I'd eat pretty much anything if it's doused in ranch dressing, though. I don't think I've ever really written the recipe down, but here's an approximation:

1/4 cup veganaise
3/4 cup unsweetened plain soy yogurt (My intestinal flora love Wildwood the best)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1Tbsp dried or fresh parsley
1 tsp dillweed
1.5 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Then just put it in a jar and shake it like a polaroid picture. You can add a little soymilk if it is too thick, but I like it thick for dipping things in.