Lentil Pate

4 cloves minced garlic
2 large shallots diced
one grated carrot
1 quart chopped mushrooms
1/5 cups brown lentils
3.5 cups water
2-3 bay leaves

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon umeboshi vinegar
1 tablespoon each dried marjoram and thyme
1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1/4 cup almond butter
1/4 cup white miso

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf Italian parsley

Saute garlic with shallots diced in a good chug of olive oil until shallots are soft. Add grated carrots, chopped mushrooms, cook until all vegetables are cooked.

Add lentils, water and bay leaves. Heat to boil, turn down to simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Add two vinegars and stir. Add dried herbs in centre and saturate with more olive oil (allow the heat of the lentils heat up herbs to infuse flavours into the oil before stirring in).

Cook mixture for a further 5-10 minutes. Lentils should be soft.

Turn off heat, add almond butter and white miso. Stir into lentls until well-blended. Taste for seasoning.

Allow lentils to cool to room temperature and then blend with hand mixer with chopped parsley. If mixture is too watery (not enough body), add more almond butter.

Lemony Dill Lentils

Saute 1 heaping teaspoons of garlic granules in olive oil until golden with the finely chopped peel of 1 lemon
Add 1 large leek (sliced), saute leeks until soft.
Add 1 cup dried lentils (brown/French lentils)
Add 1 3/4 - 2 cups water
Bring to boil and then down to simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes

Add 1 tablespoon dried dill in middle of pot. Saturate the dill with more olive oil. Let the herb infuse in the oil in the centre of the lentils for 5-10 minutes with pot covered.

Turn off heat, stir in dillweed, add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Serve with mixed grains/rice and roasted brussel sprouts.

Basic Pesto

Dry roast any combination or even just one of the above:
Walnuts
Pinenuts
Raw pumpkin seeds

Whatever nut/seed you use, you want to end up with around 1/4cup

In a measuring cup, add:
1 minced clove of garlic
Juice of half a lemon
2-3 shakes of sea salt
2/3 cup - 1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
1/4 roasted nuts/seeds from above
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Handblend the above together. If the pesto is too sticky, drizzle in a bit more olive oil. If it's too oily, try adding more basil or nuts.

That's IT.

This is very good when tossed with:
Fresh pasta
Roasted Spaghetti Squash
Steamed potatoes
White kidney beans

Creamy lemony lima beans

Saute generous tablespoon of garlic powder plus 2-3 good shakes of sea salt in 1/4 olive oil until garlic is golden. Add 2 finely chopped shallots, saute until translucent. Add 1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian flat leaft parsely, saute until wilted. Add around 1 cup cooked giant lima beans, stir to warm up beans and to coat and allow beans to absorb the garlicky goodness.

Creamy Lemon-Tahini Sauce

Combine in a measuring cup:
Juice of 1 lemon
1 heaping tablespoon of tahini butter
1/4 water (you may need to add a bit more later to adjust consistency)
1/2 teaspoon umeboshi plum paste
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes (you may need to add a bit more later to adjust consistency)
2-3 twists of the black pepper mill

Using a handblender whizz the above ingredients into a thin smooth dressing. Too watery? add some nutritional yeast flakes by a tablespoon at a time to thicken. Too thick? add a little water to thin.

I like this dressing fairly thin, somewhere between the consistency between thin and thick cream so that it just coats the beans.

When your beans are warm and thoroughly coated in shallots, garlic and fresh parsley, turn off heat and drizzle the lemon-tahini dressing over the beans, mix to coat.

Serve beans over:
1. Bed of sauteed kale/rapini and/or
2. Steamed brown rice.

Bon Appetite!

Vegan Date Squares

Date Squares
Serves 8-12

•  cinnamon? maybe.
• 1 1/2 cup 1 minute oats
• ¼ cup of coconut oil
• 2 heaping tbsp brown sugar

Filling:

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 400g pkg. pureed dates (if not available use whole pitted dates)
• 3/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

In a small pot mix dates, cinnamon, water and jam. Stir on medium heat until blended and softened. If using whole dates, mash with a fork as they begin to soften. Some texture is perfectly fine. Remove to cool slightly. In a large bowl mix dry ingredients and 1 tsp cinnamon. Add coconut oil to dry ingredients to make a crumbly mixture. Line a 10"x 8" casserole dish with parchment paper and oil it up. Sprinkle 1/2 of the crumb mixture onto the bottom of dish and using the back of your fingers press crumbs down firmly. Dollop large spoonfuls of date mixture over crumbs and spread evenly from side to side. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over top to cover filling. Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 35min. Allow to rest 10 min. then cut into squares and allow to cool completely. *If it cools completely before cutting it will be firm and sticky*

Holy ish I nailed it. VEGAN MACARONI AND CHEESE with roasted brussel sprouts

This was adapted from the Post Punk Kitchen recipe which called for 1 cup soaked cashew nuts. I didn't have any nuts or broth so I substituted the cashew butter for the nuts and added sweet paprika, dill and shallots to the garlic plus water for the broth.

Roast halved brussel sprouts in olive oil in 375 degree F oven for about 20-30 minutes.

Cook pasta and drain.

In the same pot, saute 2 minced shallots with 2 minced garlic cloves in olive oil along with 1 tsp dill and 1 tsp sweet paprika. When translucent, add 2 tablespoons cashew butter and start to add water, blending butter in carefully to remove lumps. Add around 3/4 - 1 cup water total but basically you want to eye-ball it for desired consistency. Note! leave it a bit thinner than you'd want because you will also add:
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon of white miso

Both of these things will also tend to thicken the sauce. AND THAT'S IT.

Just toss in the cooked pasta and roasted brussel sprouts and there you go!

Leafy Green Gumbo

For the greens, use any combination of:
spinach, kale, rapini, swiss chard, collard greens, tops of carrots/beets/parsnip!, broccoli, parsley... you will want 2-5 bunches of this, depending on how many servings you like (2 bunches is great for 1-2 people)

For the gumbo base:
1 tbsp dried marjoram
1 onion, diced
(optional: 1 bunch green oniong, both whtie and green parts thinly sliced)
1  green/red pepper
4 celery stalks, niced
2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp chili powder (I like chipotle chili powder for its smoky flavour.... if you are worried about spices, this is optional)
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp allspice

a few tablespoons of flour to thicken
around 1/4 cup of olive oil to make a roux out of the flour
around 1 to 2 cups of water to make the sauce

Green Tabasco for seasoning (optional)

In a large pot, simmer the washed and cut up greens in enough water to barely cover them.

In a heavy bottom medium pot, heat some oil and add marjoram to release its fragrance. Add onion(s), green/red pepper and celery stalks and cook until translucent. Then add garlic.

At this point, create a small well in the centre of the vegetables, add a splash more oil in the centre of the well and then dump in all the powdery spices (the oil is there just to lubricate the powder and ensure that things don't get too dry and sticky). Stir up everything.

By now, the greens should be done. Pour off some of the water into a measuring cup. Reserve this liquid and set aside for the sauce below.

THEN. Depending on how many greens you have (if you are cooking up to 5 bunches/3 lbs of greens, then you will add around 2/3 flour and use up to 2/3 oil for the sauce! don't be afraid to be mingy with the oil.... all you want to do is use enough oil to saturate the flour you use), spoon in your flour. For 2 bunches, I used around 3 heaping tablespoons. Add enough oil to saturate the flour and mix everything well. If it looks dry, just add some more oil.

Cook this floury mix until it is a nutty peanut butter colour. (NOTE: I REALLY tend to not be so lavish with oil... this instruction about the peanut butter business indicates that you are using enough oil to actually make the sauce at this point quite liquidy.... in my experience, I just add enough oil to fry up the flour a little and then I depend on the leafy green stock to make it saucey enough to cook... just as flavourful and much easier on the arteries).

Once oil is well incorporated, flour has been cooked, start to add the reserved liquid a bit at a time, stirring well so that there are no flour lumps in your sauce. Add enough liquid so you have enough sauce for your greens. Simmer this for around 15 minutes. Add a bay leaf if you like.

YOUR GREENS: at this point, puree the greens... because some of the greens might have the texture of bat wings (think collard greens....), it's a good idea to puree with some of the liquid it was cooked in.

Add purreed greens to gumbo sauce and voila! you're done!

Serve with:
Rice or put it in a roti/tortilla and roll it up.

This is comfort food AND you're eating leafy greens.

Once

Carrot Corriander Soup

This one's a classic adapted from the Juice for Life (now called Fresh) restaurant cookbook...

Ingredients:
3 tbsp ground corriander
2 large onions chopped
3 large carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, de-stringed and diced
2 tbsp dried marjoram
6 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp tomato paste (optional if you are worried about acidity)
1/2 teaspoon of umeboshi paste (optional if you can't find any but this is not only consider one of those alkalinizing "superfoods" (people down umeboshi tea as a hangover cure!) but also imparts the much-vaunted "umami" taste... this is invaluable for vegans as unami is usually achieved most easily with animal products like anchovy)
sufficient water to cover vegetables plus perhaps 1 inch above the surface of the vegetables

1 medium sweet potato, diced

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

In a dry heavy pot, toast the ground corriander for 1-2 minutes to release its fragrance, empty into a small bowl and set aside.

In the same pot, saute onions until translucent in olive oil. Add carrots and celery and around 1/2 tsp of salt. Keep stirring, and sauteing so that the water in the vegetables evaporates. Depending on your patience, you *may* wish to keep going to do the "pocket full of evil" aka pincage concoction I mention in an earlier post. Umami bomb! Highly effective but does take patience. Anyway, even if you just saute until things are looking soft and sticky, this will do.

Add dried marjoram, plus a bit more oil, stir, release fragrance. Add the garlic, stir, brown.
Add the tomato paste and/or umeboshi paste if your using them here plus a little water to make the paste more liquidy.... once it's at a state where all the vegetables are evenly coated by the tomato paste/umeboshi paste liquid, then stir in enough water to cover the vegetables plus 1 inch above the surface of the veggies. Add the sweet potato and then allow all of this to reach a boil, turn down to simmer and cook until sweet potato is done (around 20 minutes).

When everything is done, take off the heat, add fresh cilantro and puree the soup. I use an immersion blender and puree it right in the pot but if you are using a blender, you should let things cool before putting it in the blender. Depending on how smooth you want the soup, you can go to town with the pureeing or, leave a few veggies intact so you have something to chew on.

You're all done!

Feel free to garnish with things like:
fresh cilantro, tofutti soy cream cheese/sour cream.... but really, this soup is quite lovely on its own and also very nice if you serve some cooked udon noodles with it.

Herby red wine beans!

1/2 cup dried romano beans

1/2 cup black eyed peas

Soak beans overnight. In fresh salted (1 tsp sea salt) water, bring beans to boil, turn down and simmer until beans are tender (about an hour... but keep checking. The aim is to cook til tender but try not to let the beans burst their skins.... They are done when you blow on a bean the skin bursts)

In a large pot/skillet, heat up around 1 tbs olive oil, add 1 tsp dried marjoram and 1 tsp dried thyme, saute until fragrance is released then add 1 onion finely chopped and 2 cloves of garlic minced.

Dice:

2 carrots

1 turnip

6 new red potatoes or 1 large potato

2 portabello mushrooms or1 cups sliced cremini/white mushrooms

Add above vegetables to onions, cover skillet and continue to gently saute vegetables over a low heat to let mushrooms release juices and the root vegetables to start cooking in steam. Add 1/8 cup of dried porcini bits.

Add 1/2 cup of red wine to above and continue to cook gently.

Add the cooked beans.

When root vegetables are cooked, you're done!

Add freshly chopped parsley, black pepper and salt to taste.

Serve as is or with mashed potatoes or rice.

Pineapple Mushroom Tofu Surprise

Jessica says this is a triumph. When I bit into a king mushroom, I felt that I would never have to crave the savory texture and flavour of meat again.

Marinade:
Around a rounded tablespoon of grated fresh ginger
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of cold-pressed sesame oil
3 tablespoons of organic soy sauce
3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
Chopped cilantro (about 1/4 cup)

Mix above in an oven proof pan. Add sliced tofu, king mushrooms, oyster mushrooms. Layer slices of fresh pineapple on top, pour more marinade on top (can just mix up more sesame oil/soy sauce/rice vinegar if need be). Leave to marinate for a half hour and then put into oven for around 30 minutes.

Add chopped bok choi and stir in for another 10 minutes.

Pincage (there's a cedilla accent under the "c")

Okay. I discovered the magic of pincage through my favourite food writer in the world, Francis Lam of Salon.com in this article.

If you only had one condiment in your fridge and you were a vegan and wanted something to make your beans, greens and rice go boing! this is it. Francis gives the classic recipe in the article sited above. The first one or two times I made pincage, I tried to follow all the instructions but couldn't bring myself to a) use that much olive oil and b) stand at the stove that long. Yet. Having confessed fully to my tendency towards impatience despite years of practicing meditation, I will say that when you take the time to chop all those onions, carrots, celery stalks and whatever other vegetables you might want to add, you begin to *get* the Slow Food Movement. You begin to feel that you have JOINED THE RANKS of those who pay ritual thanks to the earth and to the things it grows which feed you through FINE gourmet cooking. You begin to pay your respects to the gift of life by cooking these vegetables in a way that will bring out the best of their flavours and that will bring out the best in the food it is eventually combined with. Pincage gives depth, richness and... the utterly mouthwatering savoury umami effect (see here what umami is). It adds an extra dimension to your food.

So, having said all that, I very rarely follow all the instructions. Perhaps my most radical departure is that I just DUMP EVERYTHING INTO A HOTPOT, TURN ON HIGH AND LEAVE IT FOR HOURS. There. No standing at the stove. I pay my respects while chopping the vegetables which gives me plenty of time to continue TINKERING with the basic onion/carrot/celery combo. I often add lots that Francis doesn't mention.

Today's pincage involves:

• half a celery root
• one onion
• 5 carrots
• 4 stalks of celery
• 1 parsley root
• 4 cloves of garlic

Chop the above into fine dice and place in slow cooker. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of sea salt and a teaspoon of whole green peppercorns. Stir, put on lid, turn slow cooker on high and leave the whole thing for a few hours (like 3-4)... then add tomato paste... leave for a few more hours. Be prepared to completely forget that you are cooking something until savoury fragrances begin to waft through the house. You will have forgotten and you will begin to wonder, what is that wonderful smell? Are the neighbours cooking something? Is there a new restaurant that opened nearby? And then you will remember, HEY, *I'm* making pincage!

Once pincage is done, you can add it to things like:

• cooked beans (I like them with beans like romano and white kidney that are often used in French or Italian cuisine... a bean that has sufficient mealy volume to soak up the glorious umami savoury goodness of the pincage... i.e. not so much adzuki bean but perhaps green lentil)
• plain rice with fresh parsley
• cooked soba noodles
• on top of cooked polenta
• spread on a baguette
• as a dip for natchoes!
• to squash based or carrot based soups that need some zing!
• (I haven't tried this yet but...) how about mixing in with some miso, add cooked red kidney beans plus perhaps some cooked couscous for instant minestrone???
• on top of couscous (of course)
• with quinoa (why not while we're at it?)

Pincage is great for Sunday/long weekend Monday afternoons and when you have a busy week ahead of you and you know you will be liable to come home hungry and depleted and not know what to cook. Once you have pincage, you have a gourmet meal at your disposal within minutes.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010: Adzuki Bean with Tarragon-Dill Tempeh Slices

Soak adzuki beans over night.
Bring to a boil in water with sea salt and reduce heat to a gentle simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Add diced sweet potato/turnip/carrots... sweet root vegetables and cook until everything is tender (total cooking time around 40 minutes)

Also night before, marinate tempeh in:

• Minced fresh tarragon
• Minced fresh dill
• Lemon juice
• Soy sauce
• Olive oil

When beans are done, drain them well. Add a little olive oil in a frying pan and saute the tempeh slices until nicely brown. Place tempeh slices on top of beans and pour the marinade over everything.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010: Maple-Dijion Mustard Sauce

Originally found in "Vegan with A Vengence" (a fine cookbook for beginner vegans, you can get a taste of this cookbook's approach at the website Post-Punk Kitchen www.theppk.com)...

Add together:

• 2 tbs prepared dijon mustard
• equal amount of maple syrup or to taste
• 1 clove minced garlic (to taste... I use less because I find really garlicky things leave an aftertaste in my mouth which then makes me hungry even when full)
  
• around 1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil... I usually just add enough to make it the right consistency to coat whatever I'm applying this sauce to
• around 1 tbs soy sauce

And stir.

For Green Beans, Onions/Shallots and Potatoes: in an oven-proof dish with a cover, place potatoes and onions, toss with the sauce and roast until done (maybe around 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees F)... at the last minute, add green beans which cook in less than five minutes

For Baked Tofu Slices: Marinate your tofu in the maple-mustard sauce over night and then bake everything for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F. You could also add vegetables like brocoli and carrots in there but then it will take longer and you should cover to ensure faster baking (also, add the brocoli when the carrots are just about done otherwise your greens will go khaki brown)...

I imagine this sauce would be good for baking a kebab... like extra firm tofu cubes, mushroom caps, sweet onion, cherry tomato, red/green pepper... assemble everything on skewers, marinate in sauce and then stick it in the oven

Monday, June 28, 2010: Ginger Juice

It's refreshing! helps digestion! AND reduces excessive inflamation (allergies, asthma, muscle injury, zits, sore throat... basically when your tissues start to get puffy due to perceived and actual attack and your cells need assistance in metabolizing excess toxins and fluids, get out the GINGER JUICE!)

Also this really really tastes yummy and much better than any soda pop I've tasted.

For up to four cups of ginger juice:

• Peel and mince at least 2 inches of ginger into a glass pitcher
• Add the juice of at least 1 lemon
• For every lemon used, add 1/4 cup of agave nectar
• Pour hot water over this mix to help the agave nector to melt and then top up with cool water

That's it! store in fridge! Jessica says even reading the recipe for this makes her happy because this tastes SO good!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Steamed Asian Marinated Tofu

Marinade:

• minced fresh ginger (I use the tiny ceramic washboard like ginger graters... nothing else gets the juice out like it)... note you may also used powered ginger--don't be mingy/stingy here! Grate a good inch or MORE of fresh ginger, use around o how about 1 tablespoon of the powdered stuff
• sesame oil (about 3 tbs)... it depends how much liquid you need which is determined by how much tofu you have... I only had three half inch thick slices
• soy sauce, mirrin, rice vinegar (I generally don't use more than 1 tbs of things... but use your discretion, dip your finger in and taste)
  
• minced fresh garlic

(not added last night but if I had some, I would also add chopped green onion (the white part only)

Prepare the tofu by slicing into half inch slices, lay down in a flat glass dish with lots of surface area and pour on the marinade, stick in the fridge. If you remember, turn over after a couple of hours (I forgot and just flipped it over and let the other side soak while I prepared the rice and my vegetables and it was FINE).

Once you're ready, you need a stove top situation to steam the tofu. I got a large pot and filled it with 2 inches of water. I then inserted one of those metal vegetable steamers in the pot, and placed a ceramic rice bowl over the centre stem of the vegetable steamer so I had a flat surface on which to rest a saucer which contained a few slices of tofu along with some marinade.

Get the water boiling, cover the whole contraption and steam for a mere five minutes.

I had this with steamed brown rice (if you had one of those tripods, you could stick that in the rice and steam the tofu AFTER the rice is done... less pots to clean! I gotta get me a tripod from China town!) AND I sliced Belgian endive in half, heated up some olive oil and quickly grilled the endive in a frying pan. I drizzled a vinaigrette of lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and sea salt over the endive after turning off the heat)

Other exciting things to add to basic marinade:

• Dillweed

• Minced shallot

Saturday, June 26, 2010: Vegan Risotto Pie

Vegan Risotto Pie Inspired by Mela in Yorkville, Toronto

In olive oil:
Saute finely diced onion/shallots with minced garlic and add dried basil

Add sliced mushrooms and keep stirring until the mushrooms have released their juices.

Add around 1/2 cup of uncooked rice (I used brown short grain organic rice even though traditional risotto insists upon Arborio rice which apparently goes creamier--I suspect it has higher starch content) and coat with the oil in the pan.

Slowly add an equal amount of Vermouth (I think you can also use white wine) a little at a time, letting each addition be absorbed before adding more.

THEN I completely go off the charts and I just DUMP IN 1 cup ( basically one part rice, two parts liquid, here in case you want to scale up or down) of water/vegetable stock. This is a radical departure from traditional risotto cooking which requires you to stand and stir in little amounts of liquid, allowing each addition to be completely absorbed before adding more. I don't know what havoc will ensue if you tried just dumping in all the liquid in one go with Arborio rice, but I tried with short grain brown rice and it was FINE. Unless you need time by yourself and find stirring in liquid and watching rice slowly expand to be relaxing and beneficial, I say to heck with it! Throw in the liquid, let it reach bubbling, then turn down the heat to minimum, cover and let the rice aLONE.

Let's move on. While the rice cooks, peel and slice rutabaga/celery root/potato (choose just one or a combo of the roots), toss lightly with olive oil, place on a pie plate and roast in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes.

When the root vegetables are done, pile torn kale on top of them and then either diced tomato/tomato sauce on top.

When rice is done, stir in soy cream cheese, black pepper and salt. Mix well and then put this on top of the root vegetable/kale/tomato layers. You might want to add a second layer of tomato substance on top of the rice. Put everything back into the oven for another 20-30 minutes.