Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Chickpea and Tomato Lettuce Wraps!

I made the tomato sauce without a recipe, as everyone should, but can only remember some ingredients. The chickpeas were cooked in almost the same thing. This recipe isn't exact but it's similar.
Ingredients:
1. Can of chickpeas
2. Diced tomatoes
3. Chili powder- about one tablespoon
4. Salt + ground black pepper
5. Fresh mint
7. 2 cloves of garlic
8. 1/3 of a white onion
9.  1 or 2 teaspoons of dried thyme
10. 1 or 2 teaspoons of dried or fresh basil
11. 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
 
Tomato Sauce:
Chop the onion thinly and cook in oil for the tiniest bit of time. Add a can of tomatoes to the skillet. Chop the mint and place in the tomatoes, as well as garlic and half the chili pepper. Add a pinch of salt and a teaspoon-ish of black pepper. Add half the thyme and basil. Cook until warm and stir.
 
Chickpeas:
Add the rest of the chili powder, some more salt and pepper, a little garlic powder, and thyme. Cook. Serve with lime and lettuce leaves. 

Monday, March 16, 2015

Bread with Balsamic, Tomato, and Roasted Garlic

Really delicious toast/bread thing, serve as a side to a meal.
 
 
Ingredients:
1. Sliced baguette
2. Sliced tomato
3. Balsamic Vinegar
4. Oil
5. Garlic
6. Basil- OPTIONAL
 
Instruction:
Brush a little oil over the bread. Mince or press garlic and add salt, place both bread and garlic in a pan. You can just toast the bread if you want. Fry the garlic until it's crispy. IF cooking/warming the bread on the skillet, turn after about a minute, then remove. IF toasting, just let it toast. Place sliced tomato on the bread, drizzle balsamic vinegar, and top with the crispy garlic.



Saturday, March 14, 2015

Falafel Wrap

Ingredients:

1. Can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans
2. 1 onion
3. 2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
4. Flour- gluten free works! (see below for amounts)
5. Teaspoon of cumin
6. Teaspoon of coriander
7. 1 yellow pepper or yellow pepper rings- either one
8. Tomato (enough for the amount you want)
9. Oil, enough to cover the pan by a centimeter- BUT you can deep fry these.
10. Pita wrap
11. Spinach
12. Pickle or cucumber
13. Anything sort of sauce. The sauce can completely change it. You can do a coconut yogurt (not coconut flavored; made from coconut), plain sriracha, lime, etc. You can even use barbecue if you like it but that wouldn't be very good but then again people eat mayonnaise on pizza so there's a chance you would like it. 
 
Making the Falafel:
Kinda chop the onion and place it into a food processor. Drain a can of chickpeas and place the actual chickpeas into the processor too. Process until everything is smaller than half a centimeter but more than 5 millimeter chunks. What you have might be a little watery so you can drain this after it's mixed, but you don't have to. If it is a little watery and you don't drain it you'll have to use more flour. put it in a bowl and add the garlic and spices. Then add at least 3 tablespoons of flour. Mine seemed fine but fell apart when I fried it. So make it into a 2 centimeter to a 1 inch ball and place it into hot oil and let it get nice and brown, and roll it on to each side until its evenly colored.
 
Wrapping it:
Toast the pita til it's warm. Chop the tomato and yellow pepper and put from one side to the other along with the falafel, spinach, and cucumber/pickle. Add the sauce and wrap.
 
BAM SON. BOOM. DELICIOUS. YOU'RE WELCOME.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 


Friday, March 13, 2015

Cold Noodles with Apples and Pomegranate

My brother made this one right before autumn and I luckily remembered it and was able to take photos. This was the first time I had cold noodles- better yet cold noodles with apples, pomegranate, and tofu! This 
 
Ingredients
1. Package of thick rice noodles (these are seaweed/brown rice noodles)
2. Handful of pomegranate seeds
3. Sriracha sauce- keep this aside for later use.
4. Wasabi sauce, but you can use dried wasabi peas on the top if you prefer
5.  Cabbage- thinly sliced until you have a handful
6. Baked tofu with a fresh herb sauce:
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 2 or 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • Squeeze of sesame oil
  • 4 tablespoons of Sriracha
  • Any chopped fresh herbs you want- Basil? Cilantro? Parsley? Almost anything works.
7. 1 lime
 
Instruction:
FIRST, make the tofu:
Make the sauce for the tofu by blending all of the ingredients and cover tofu in it. You can let this sit on the tofu to get the flavor in there or simply cover the tofu in this and bake it now. Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut the tofu in to cute and tiny lil' cubes and press a few paper towels over it to drain the juices. Place on a greased baking pan and cover it in the sauce. Once the oven hits 400, place the pan into the oven and leave alone for 15-20 minutes. Pull out and flip, leave in for another 10-15 minutes. While you're waiting, do the noodles.
 
 

Now the noodles:
Start boiling water for your noodles. Add a little sesame oil and a small pinch of salt into the water. Follow the packages cooking instructions from there. Dump into a bowl and place into the fridge for now.
 
Garnish/Toppings:
Slice the apple as you see in the photo, into little circles. You can cut those circles in half and leave some circle, or do them all in half. Whatever you want- just get the apple cut. Slice the pomegranate in half and spoon its guts and blood into a bowl next to the apples.
 
Plating/Putting Together:
Take the noodles out of the fridge and place into a bowl/bowls. Squeeze the sriracha any way you want to over the bowl.
IF using wasabi sauce: move over the noodles to an indent on 1/3 of the bowl squeeze it over this. Place the tofu on top. Add the apples next to/incorporated into that. Add the cabbage slices into a little teepee and use a handful of the pomegranate seeds over this. Avoid the tofu so it doesn't look to crowded.
IF using wasabi peas, place the tofu on one of the side and cover the entire bowl or around the tofu with the peas. Add the  cabbage in a little teepee and cover the rest of the bowl with pomegranate- avoiding the tofu.
Squeeze the lime over alllll of this.
 
Enjoy dude!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Top 2 Drinks For Spring

Spring is here and that means you need to put away the cocoa mix.
Last week there was a foot of snow and now it's 60 degrees. If you're out with friends or have friends over, pick up an actually refreshing drink. These are my favorite two- Apple Ginger Ale and MAPLE iced coffee.
 
1. Apple Ginger Ale
 
This is mostly Thug Kitchens Agua Fresca recipe, so go check it out on their blog.
1. Juice a few apples, until you have 2 cups of juice.
2. Throw it in a blender with a cup of water and  juice from half a lime.
3. Add the tiniest bit of agave or if you want it EVEN sweeter you can add more.
4. Once that's blended, add ginger ale and serve/drink
Drink it straight out of the blender if you want to.
 
 If you're over 21 or within your household and have permission from your parents, a splash of whiskey (Jameson works best) makes this a great party drink
 



MAPLE SWEETENED ICED COFFEE THING.
DUDE.
If you've walked any sort of step for any sort of man kind on any moon or planet you've had iced coffee. Cold brew coffee. I don't have a recipe of my own and I don't want to feel like I'm copying someone so just look online. Add a small scoop of coconut cream or the white stuff collected at the top of canned coconut milk to a blender with a cup or two of ice. Dump in 2 cups of cold coffee. IF you don't want to cold brew coffee, use some old stuff but it's not the same. Add maple syrup- as much as you want for how sweet you'd like it. My favorite soy creamer is the one at Trader Joes. If I were to go back to a regular diet, I would still be using this stuff. Anyways, add 1/4 a cup UNLESS you like it more or less diluted. Blend and possibly add extracts like vanilla or almond for an extra kick.
Top with whipped coconut cream and anything from chocolate flakes to toffee chunks. 

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Sweet Potato Cupcakes





I was on the cooking channel and it was around 3 AM so I was feeling really open to ideas, and since it's now been over 24 hours since I've slept, I decided to go through. I made jam thumbprints and a giant breakfast for my family and now at 4:38 PM, sweet potato cupcakes. The thing on the cooking channel obviously had eggs and butter and cheese and just a bunch of anti-vegan things. I didn't use a recipe and they actually turned out pretty delicious. The one on the cooking channel actually had an espresso icing filling, and I did the same. That's also below. Now because I didn't measure, this is going to be a little different.

One thing you should expect is for it to be really moist. I really like it, but if you don't want it to be so much, use a regular vegan vanilla or plain cupcake recipe and replace whatever butter replacement with the measurements you need for yam.
 
MAKE SURE to adjust it with sugar, almond meal, and what ever else.

                                                            INGREDIENTS

3/4ish a cup of sugar

Small spoonful of almond butter- this adds moisture but it's really not needed

1 1/2ish cups of almond meal

Small handful of flax seed (ground)

Mix some baking soda and baking powder somewhat evenly until you have about considerate tablespoon

One yam/sweet potato boiled for about 20-25 minutes, peeled

Dash of vanilla extract

Small splash of almond milk or dairy milk substitute

2 pinches of salt

Dash of nutmeg, dash of cinnamon, dash of ground clove

                                                            DIRECTIONS

1. Mix this all together and put in the oven at 375 for 15 minutes, or until they seem done.

2. Let them cool completely.

3. Add icing on top, and place in the fridge.

                                                              ICING

Vegan butter substitute, spoonful or two

Pinch of salt

Splash of rum

Splash of vanilla

Splash (or two) of espresso coffee and

5 to 8 spoons of powdered sugar or until it's the texture you want it
                                                     
                                                    DIRECTIONS

1. Whip/whisk together
2. Place in the fridge to cool/harden 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Daikon Noodle and Spinach Salad with Cilantro, Lemon, and Peanut Sauce


1. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape daikon raddish to form noodles. Set aside.

2. Peanut Sauce:

  • 2 dollops of peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon or more of chili flakes, and 5 to 7 tablespoons of soy sauce- depending upon how thin you want the sauce. I had mine as an almost thin paste but not yet qualifiable for the title.

3. Mix the noodles and peanut sauce together. Add a handful of spinach or some leafy green.

4. Put into a serving dish and top with cilantro, basil, carrots even. Squeeze lemon (preferably lime, but both work nicely) over top.