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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

What To Eat With...

Plantains?

How about some homemade guacamole?

Or how about some black bean hummus?

Heck why not both.

I made my own plantain chips, baked of course. Very simple to do, too. I like to shop at the Asian Food Market near my house. They have great prices, awesome variety, and I find it amusing to shop there. The plantains have been 2 for $1, so every time I have gone I picked some up. Here is how I make my chips:

Plantain Chips

2 yellow plantains
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. (You may want to spray your pan with nonstick spray so the chips don't stick too much.)
Slice the plantains about 1/8 inch thick.

Toss with oil, pepper, and salt.

Place on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes on one side.

Flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes. (oh do watch them, they burn easily, or is that just me? I burn a lot of things, don't I.)

Now time for the easy guacamole (sorry no pictures of this but do you really need them?) take avocados and lemon juice and black pepper. Easy! I don't like all those extra things people add to there guacamole like onions and tomatoes. It takes away from the delicious avocado taste. And last but not least:

Black Bean Hummus

1 can black beans, rinsed
1 tablespoon tahini (If you have black sesame seeds you could make your own black tahini but I didn't and I do have the black sesame seeds)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of one lemon
1/4 cup parsley

Place the black beans, tahini, spices, and lemon juice in a food processor.

Blend until smooth. Add in the parsley, blend.

Simple. Now eating time!!

I halved some grape tomatoes, and plated up. Yum!

Monday, February 13, 2012

LoVe

Love= Chocolate, Coconut, Cupcakes, and Cookies.

Yup that just about sums up love. Interesting how everything starts with the letter "C" too, hum?

So Valentine's Day is here yet again. What to do, what to do? Make something chocolaty and coconutty and orangey? Why not. How about we start off with Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes, move onto Chocolate Chip Cookies, then finish things off with Blood Orange Almond Coconut Cookies? (Wow and still what is with all the "C's"?)

Here we go...

Chocolate Cherry Surprise Cupcakes

2/3 cup almond milk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat flour (use white or white whole wheat)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cacao nibs (optional)
1/4 cup black cherry preserves

Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix the milk and apple cider vinegar together and allow to curdle for a few minutes.

Beat in the agave, oil, and extracts.

In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt (and if adding cacao nibs).

Add in the milk mix.

Fill cupcake liners with 2 tablespoons at first.

Add in a teaspoon or so of the cherry preserves.

Top with another 2 tablespoons (or until the batter is gone) of the cake batter. Bake 20 to 22 minutes. Allow to cool.

I opted for no frosting or anything on top of these cupcakes just because, but do feel free to frost as your heart may so content.

Cacao nibs, for those of you who are wondering, are what cocoa powder is made from. They are just broken bits of the cacao seed. They are very high in antioxidants and add a nice crunch to the cupcakes. If you may remember I topped one of my desserts last summer with some. They have a very strong taste when eaten alone, but in the cupcake they were great and added an even deeper depth to the chocolaty-ness to the cupcakes. The next recipe is from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, with a few tweeks.

Chocolate Chip Cookies


1/2 cup date sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup almond milk
2 tablespoons tapioca flour (or arrowroot powder or cornstarch)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat white flour (I used regular whole wheat out of white)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix the oil and sugar.

Add in the milk and tapioca flour and beat until there are no clumps.

Mix in the vanilla.

Add half the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the remaining flour.

Fold in the chocolate chips (plus an extra tablespoon of flour).

Drop walnut sized amounts on the prepared pans.
Flatten them slightly. Bake 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12 for crispy cookies. (I baked them for 10 minutes.)

Let them cool. Yum!

My next recipe well I thought hey let me make something red for vday, but turned out to be a fail. These cookies did not come out the red color I was hoping for but they are still great and do have red zest throughout, so that kind of makes up for it. (No not really but I am trying to make myself feel better her!) Oh and plus they are gluten free!

Blood Orange Almond Coconut Cookies

1/2 cup blood orange juice
1 tablespoon blood orange zest
1/4 cup oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoon agave nectar
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup almond flour (meal)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon arrowroot flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Mix the juice, zest, oil, extracts, agave, and chia seeds together in a measuring cup or small bowl.

Combine flours, nutmeg. salt, arrowroot, and baking soda.

Add in the juice mixture (watch it bubble up somewhat, science!).

Form tablespoon sized amounts into balls, flatten them on the pan. Bake 20 minutes, turning pan during baking.

Allow to cool and a rack.

There you go! I hope you have a great Valentine's Day! I will leave you all with my favorite love quote...

The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. 

<3 What movie is that from?

Friday, February 10, 2012

Cracker

Ha that is such a bad title (for reasons that well are just wrong, but it is a fitting title). I made crackers, therefore a perfect title of this post.

Seed, gluten free crackers to be exact.

I saw this recipe on Oh She Glows blog for Endurance Crackers and thought hey i want to make those, but lets be me and change them up a bit, and you do not have any pumpkin seeds (which is on my grocery list for next time I go to Trader Joes and have money to go to Trader Joes). They are simple and contain only a few ingredients, but ingredients that are found in a well stocked vegan pantry, sorry I have one of those ya know. Chia seeds are the key ingredient in these crackers. But throw in any seeds you have on hand! That is what I did! I also added the last of my garbanzo bean flour just to use it up and to add even more protein to these crackers. Oh and I ate mine all at one shot, I'm a hungry girl! Plus I had babaganosh and tomatoes on them. Yummy meal I must say.

Seedie Crackers

1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
2 tablespoons sunflower
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds (or another one of regular)
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, grated or minced
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix all of the seeds, spices, and flour together.

Combine the water and garlic.

Add the water to the seeds, mix and let it stand for a few minutes so the chia seeds "activate" and start to gel up.

Spread onto prepared pan.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Cut into crackers, flip them (I also moved the inner ones out to the edge for more even baking) and bake another 20 minutes. But watch them, they will burn very easily!

I experienced this, but they are still tasty a little burnt. I am truly my father's and nana's child. (They would always burn the bread when they were making toast or garlic bread.)


Monday, February 6, 2012

A "Wing-a-ling" Dragon




Trogdor!!! For those of you who missed out an a crazy online cartoon thing that was online called "Strong Bad," well you have no idea what or who Trogdor is. So here is the link. You must watch it. Super funny.

What is the link between a silly cartoon and food? How about "wings" or seitan posing as wings. How about that. I made homemade seitan that I then coated in cornmeal and baked. I should have made a hot sauce to coat them in afterwards, but didn't want the wings to get too spicy. Mistake, yes, I have learned for next time. Seitan is crazy easy to make and strangely meat like looking. It is made from vital wheat gluten. You can find this at any health food store.

Seitan


1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon sage
1 cup water

6 cups water
1 tablespoon tamari (soy sauce)
1 tablespoon molasses

Mix the vital wheat gluten and the spices together,

add in the water.

It will form into a  gelatinous dough that looks strange but isn't sticky.

Knead the dough for a minute or two.

Place on a cutting board and cut into 16 equal pieces.

Bring water to a boil with the tamari or molasses.

Cook in the water for 1 hour. Yes that seems long, but you don't really have to do much except add in extra water if needed, say the tops of the seitan start to show too much.

Drain the seitan. Use as you like.

Baked Seitan 

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup hot sauce
8 pieces of seitan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, line a baking pan with parchment paper.

Dip the seitan into the hot sauce.

Coat in the cornmeal.

Place on the prepared sheet. Bake 30 minutes.

Yum.

You may want to make a hot sauce (like the one they coat buffalo wings in, which is hot sauce and butter) or use honey mustard or ketchup or bbq sauce. As you like really.

There you go. That is what I ate for Super Bowl Sunday! While my dad and brother ate real buffalo wings. Oh the smell is strong from those guys cooking and burns so bad in the back of your or my nose. =/

Until next time...