Recipes

Vermont Style Vegan Gumbo

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This past weekend my husband and I stopped in at the Waitsfield Farmers Market which is one of my favourite markets. What I love about it is that I can find tons of organic locally grown ingredients that are different than what we can find at our market in Montpelier (which is also a great market and we stopped there too). My “big exciting” purchase was okra which being from the north east is not something you commonly find and is (in my opinion) a pretty foreign ingredient up this way. I decided that I was going to make some gumbo and I had to put my twist on it as I didn’t have a green pepper (or any peppers at all in the house) and no filé powder which is traditional in gumbo.

1 cup of roux*
1 medium onion, diced
3 baby leeks, diced
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 extra large garlic cloves, minced
4 cups vegetable stock
1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes with their juices
1 1/2 cups sliced okra
1 tsp. dried thyme
3/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1T Vermont Pepper Works Hempin’ Jalapeno**
Chalula Hot Sauce (or your favorite hot sauce), to taste
3 Cups cooked rice
• Make the roux. To the roux add the onion, leeks, celery and garlic, saute, stirring a few times, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the stock, tomatoes, okra, , thyme, salt, pepper, and hot sauces. Simmer, partially covered, over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 30 to 40 minutes. Adjust the seasonings, to taste.
• To serve, spoon about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice into each soup bowl and ladle the hot gumbo over the top.
*Note: For the roux, combine equal parts of flour and oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 30 minutes, or until chocolate brown, being careful not to burn. (If it does burn, you’ll have to throw it out and start over.)

** the hempin’ jalapeno is vinegary so it helps to balance the flavours. If you have Tabasco use that – I didn’t have any so I substituted it with what I had.

If I remember I’ll take a picture tonight when I heat up the leftovers

I heart Kale

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Last night was all about kale-

I made kale chips which are extremely easy and yummy to make. Just take some dinosaur kale and toss with shoyu, olive oil, garlic powder and onion powder and dehydrate at 115 for 4-6 hours.

Then I made some kale and white bean soup sooooo goood:
2 cans of canellni beans
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups of kale cut into bite sized pieces
2 carrots diced
4 celery stalks diced
1 medium onion diced
2 heading tablespoons of nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste

I sautee the onions, carrots and celery with a little oil until soft. Add in one can of beans and mash up this will thicken the soup. Then toss in the kale and stir everything together. Add the broth and other can of beans and bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer for 15min. Add the nutritioinal yeast and salt and pepper to taste. then gobble it up.

California TLTs

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Tonight we are having some yummy California TLTs because I am craving avocado and we have lots of tempeh to use.

California TLTs:

Ingredients
6 slices of tempeh bacon
4 slices good white bread, cut 1/2-inch thick
4 tablespoons reduced fat vegenaise
4 to 8 tender green lettuce leaves, washed and spun very dry
1 ripe Hass avocado
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 large ripe tomato, sliced 1/2-inch thick
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place a baking wire rack on a sheet pan and arrange the tempeh bacon on the rack in a single layer. Bake for 15 to 25 minutes, until the tempeh is browned and crisp.
Place the bread slices on a sheet pan and toast them for 5 minutes. Turn the slices and toast for 1 more minute, until all the bread is evenly browned. Place 2 slices on a cutting board. Spread each slice with about 1 tablespoon of vegenaise. Cover the slices with a layer of lettuce. Peel the avocado and slice it 1/2-inch thick. Toss the avocado slices gently with the lemon juice, and arrange on top of the lettuce leaves. Place 3 slices of tempeh on top of each sandwich and then add a layer of tomato slices on top of the tempeh. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.

Spread each of the remaining 2 slices of toasted bread with 1 tablespoon of vegenaise and place, vegenaise side down, on the sandwiches. Cut in half and serve.

Raw Lasagna

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I think I am addicted to Raw Lasagna! It is soooo good!

I made a different recipe this time and I really enjoyed it more. The first recipe I tired, although good, was far to heavy with all the nut meat and nut cheeze. This recipe which you can find here: http://gliving.com/zucchini-and-green-zebra-tomato-lasagna/ was great and filling and light.

I didn’t make exactly this recipe as I had some garlic scapes so I made a garlic scape pesto instead of the basil pistacho and my pine nut ricotta didn’t turn out light and fluffy more saucy (i think i over soaked the pine nuts). But over all it was delicious. Now I just have to figure out the rest of the week!

Raw Tacos

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I was lucky enough that my husband worked from home yesterday and was able to prep the spicy “beans” for our tacos. I used the recipe from this post http://gliving.com/sarmas-soft-corn-tacos/ as the basis for our tacos. Neil made the spicy beans and I made the guacamole and salsa. I didn’t have the time to make the tacos shells but instead we just used boston lettuce leaves and it was delicious. The spicy “beans” tasted just like veggie ground round (oh and we didn’t dehydrate for 10 hours more like 3). The meal was great and tonight I am being ambitious and make raw blackforest cheezecake!