"Cheezy" Broccoli Rice

The only way I used to like broccoli was smothered in cheese whiz, but since then I've found many enjoyable uses for broccoli.  That didn't stop me from making a "cheezy" broccoli dish.

My friend Turbo introduced me to this “vegan cheese” sauce that is much healthier than most cheese alternatives.  His version included lemon juice or vinegar, which I don’t usually include.  Miso and tahini can be pricy, but a container of miso can last quite a while.  You can try to make your own tahini by grinding sesame seeds.  Miso has a high sodium content, so if you're watching your sodium, this may not be something you want to use.  But it has a bit of that umami taste, which is also enjoyable.

Equal parts miso & tahini, plus some water to make it creamy.  I often add garlic powder, lots of nutritional yeast, and turmeric.

So I cooked up some brown rice and parboiled some chopped broccoli.  I mixed the sauce up, and once everything was cooked, I mixed it all together.

Ful Medammes with Greens

I ended up with three cans of fava beans, which I normally wouldn't be drawn towards, but I decided to make a healthy dish based on the Middle Eastern fava bean-based dish called ful medammes or foul mudammas (or other variations of spellings).  The dish I had actually had before contains a sort of tomato sauce, but the one I made this time was inspired by one I've seen at another local restaurant, which I haven't tried since I usually can't pass up the falafel sandwich (no, it doesn't meet the guidelines I usually go by, but you can't always be perfect).  I've made other beans-and-greens dishes with tahini and lemon juice that are similar, so the spices and the beans could be varied.  I'd try some chickpeas.

I cut up a clove of garlic and sauteed it in a pan, added a little bit of water and 1 can of fava beans as the garlic began to brown, then added cumin, paprika, and pepper, and a dash of cayenne powder.  I let that cook for a while.  As far as I know, these types of dishes do not contain any greens (aside from parsley sometimes?), but I decided to chop up some kale, and I added that, making sure I kept the pan moist with water.  As that cooked for a bit, I juiced a half of a lemon.  I let the greens cook just till they're well-wilted but still vibrantly green.  Then I drizzled some tahini (maybe about a tablespoon) over the food.  Lastly, I poured the lemon juice on and mixed it well.  Oh, and I sprinkled on a little salt to taste. 

This was so good, I had it again the next day (which was today), and plan to make this dish for a potluck or another opportunity to share this dish.

Fava beans, if my memory serves, are pretty cheap at middle eastern markets, and would be even cheaper if you cooked them from the dried beans.  They vary in size though, and the ones I've seen dried are rather large, so expect that they'll take longer to make than other beans like pintos.  I have always felt that favas would make a good bean burger, but I never make bean burgers.  My point is more that it has a distinct flavor that I think is really good and memorable.

Cancer-Protective Healthy Dinner Party

I found out recently that a friend of mine has a brain tumor. She's working on raising money for a biopsy. She is raising money through this store.

I decided to have a fundraiser in the form of a healthy food night dinner party. I've done healthy food nights before for free. I buy inexpensive food and prepare healthy, simple, yet tasty recipes to encourage people to eat this way as well. For this event, I made more food than usual, and asked for a suggested donation of $10. It was a small event, but I feel like it went well.

I made a kale, white bean, and tomato stew using canned organic tomato sauce, onions, garlic, cannelini beans, kale, carrots, seasoned with a little paprika, thyme, and garlic. The tomato sauce had some salt in it already.

I also made a black rice salad with a dijon dressing that included dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, garlic, and water. This salad had japonica black rice (which was on sale) and also had chopped sun-dried tomatoes and crushed walnuts. It was meant to have greens added, but I ran out of time and there were plenty of greens in the other dishes.

The other salad I made was mostly raw: raw chopped collards and some spinach, chopped apples, with my favorite tahini curry dressing that contained curry powder, lemon juice, tahini, and water. I brought optional currants that people could add to the salad.

The dessert got a lot of praise. I wanted to make something with berries, since these are protective against cancer. I wanted to make something that was mostly whole foods and mostly raw. I got some dates from my local farmers market (the apples, kale, and lemons were from there too). I thawed some mixed organic berries and blended them up with a little bit of lemon juice and vanilla extract. I slightly melted some raw coconut butter (this stuff is probably not incredibly healthy in large quantities, but more ideal that coconut oil, and so rich and delicious) and mixed all this together. I sliced the dates along one side, removed the pit, and stuffed each date with a little of the coconut-berry filling. I had considered putting in some raw cacao nibs, but ran out of time to deal with that.

So over all, I had a variety of whole plant foods, many of which are protective against cancer, including the kale and collards (cruciferous veggies- in the cabbage family), garlic, onions, carotenoids in the carrots and tomatoes, turmeric in the curry powder, and the good stuff (antioxidants) in dark berries (and probably the black rice). Plus a healthy dose of fiber.  Oh, and walnuts have some omega 3 fatty acids.

Of course eating this one meal isn't going to prevent or reverse cancer.  Eating this way on a regular basis can help protect you against cancer.  Discussion reversing cancer would be tricky for anyone to discuss, even seemingly doctors.  But if you are fighting cancer, it makes sense to eat a whole foods plant-based diet.

Further reading:  Eat For Health - The Anti-Cancer Diet
 Foods for Cancer Prevention |  T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Here are some other links I've been sharing with friends and family dealing with cancer:

http://anticancerliving.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/tumor-shrinking-on-vegan-diet/

http://www.thechinastudy.com/PDFs/ChinaStudy_Excerpt.pdf

http://crazysexylife.com/category/diet-lifestyle/

http://www.healingdaily.com/conditions/Gerson-therapy.htm

video/audio: China Study: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfWSHaaPiE8

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/859

http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/1-anticancer-vegetable/

Tomato, Red Kale, and Tepary Bean Soup

I'm full now from eating a soup I just made with the tepary beans I cooked up this morning. Tepary beans are native to this region (I'm in the Phoenix area), are smaller and faster-cooking, though perhaps not as enjoyable as the traditional white beans for such a soup. They still have a good flavor though.

Kale was on sale, so I had bought some of that, and there were some extra tomatoes at the house. I used a leftover half of an onion, a couple garlic cloves, and sauteed those without oil for a bit, then I added some water, thyme (from my garden!), and dried tarragon.

I chopped up three tomatoes, threw those in, along with a few cups of beans. I removed the kale stems, and rinsed and chopped the leaves, then added about half of that. I let it all cook for several more minutes. I added a bit of salt to taste at the end. I ate about half of the soup, and that was quite filling.

Cauliflower Soup with Fresh Dill and Sundried Tomatoes

I've been wanting to use fresh dill since I am growing it my garden. I don't believe I've ever used fresh dill in cooking before. Since I also had cauliflower from the farmer's market, I decided a soup might be good with both those ingredients.

I boiled some cauliflower and chopped potato and sauteed some onion and garlic. I soaked some sun-dried tomatoes in water and a dash of liquid smoke (I wanted to see how that would taste, but I didn't notice a huge difference). I blended up just a handful of cashews in the blender to add some creaminess to the soup, then added the cooked potatoes, cauliflower, onion, and garlic and some of the water (being careful because it was hot). I also added some Bragg's liquid aminos, several stalks of dill, a little garlic powder, and some white pepper. I added more water, but not all the water from boiling the cauliflower and potatoes, because I wanted a thick soup.

Since I had some peas growing in my garden, I added some to the soup, but didn't find that it added much to the dish. I cut up the sun-dried tomatoes with kitchen scissors and added them to the soup. It was quite good. If it didn't have the tomatoes, I would've perhaps added more salt or Bragg's or added some lemon juice.

Salsa Zucchini over Millet

Tonight I made a batch of millet, referred to as a pseudo-grain because it is actually a seed. It reminds me a bit of couscous because of it's color and texture.

Zucchini was on sale the other day, so I bought two, and decided to cook them up with some salsa, which was inspired by a weird vegan tostada recipe I made for my family a while back when they were willing to try food I made- I just wish I had tried the recipe first, because that one was a bit lacking. Anyway, I sliced the two small-medium zucchinis in half lengthwise then sliced it into half-circles a few millimeters thick. I cooked that up in a cast iron pan, adding some chopped garlic, stirring often. Once the zucchini was pretty tender, I added maybe a 1/3 cup salsa, stirred a few more times. Then I added a tiny bit of tahini (like 1/2 tbsp) and some nutritional yeast. I ate that with some millet. There was enough salt in the salsa to not feel like i had to add any.

I really like this kind of dish with avocado, but since I had none, I added the tahini to give it a little creaminess. At times I have also added greens like spinach.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Hard squash is something you can buy without using for a while. I bought an acorn squash on sale a couple weeks ago and finally got around to using it. I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, and baked it. I had cooked some dried beans earlier in the day so I decided to use those along with some greens from my garden, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and crushed walnuts.
I seasoned it with some balsamic vinegar, a splash of Bragg's liquid aminos, paprika, and chipotle powder. When everything was done, I scooped the bean filling into the squash. This is something I'd definitely make again.

Indian food

I love Indian food. Over time I have gathered various spices and cookbooks which make it easier to make Indian food at home. I often browse through the recipes at http://showmethecurry.com/, because although I don't have all the ingredients most of the time, I've still had some delicious food by mostly following the recipes. Plus they have videos for people who find that useful.

I have made the coconut chutney, the Lemon Rice but with quinoa instead of rice, I somewhat randomly chose this Channa recipe to base my seasoning of the leftover black lentils I needed to use up tonight.

You can make so many delicious plant-based dishes with an Indian influence. I choose vegan recipes and try to minimize or omit the oil, salt, etc.

White Beans, Tomatoes, and Kale

I'm watching Forks Over Knives while I eat dinner tonight. I thought I'd stop to write up what my dinner consists of before I forget.

I just used a can of white northern beans, rinsed, and cooked it with a little chopped onion and two chopped roma tomatoes. I added a little bit of Bragg's liquid aminos, lime juice (not fresh unfortunately), garlic powder, and chili powder. Then I added some chopped kale and cilantro. When it was done, I added maybe 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of tahini and mixed it all together. It was quite quick and it tasted delicious.

Chickpea Cilantro Soup

I never used to like soup, aside from chicken and stars with a bunch of saltines. I think the reason I wasn't into soup had to do with not having much soup growing up, as well as not liking celery, which seems to be in most soups.

I've been surprised, however, that I've like nearly every soup I've made, even without a recipe. Inspired by Dr. Joel Fuhrman's suggestions of cooking soups, I've tried a few that involve blending.

This time I made a soup not very much like those Dr. Fuhrman recommends, but good and healthy nonetheless. First I sauteed some onions and then some garlic in a cast iron pan. I transferred this to a bigger pot and added some water, turned it to medium-high and added some chili powder, garlic powder, Bragg's liquid aminos, epazote, and part of a chopped over-sized and tough zucchini that some friends grew in their garden. Once the zucchini was pretty well cooked, I put some water, sunflower seeds, and leftover cilantro stems into a blender, then used a slotted spoon to add about half of the non-liquid ingredients from the soup pot.

You have to be careful with hot liquids in blenders. I usually use less liquid while cooking, then add cool water for the blending, then mix the rest of the hot liquid in at the end- in the pot.

I poured the portion I just blended into a large glass container that I will use for leftovers if there are any. I then added a bit more water and the rest of the non-liquid pieces from the cooked soup. I then added all of the blended soup in with the liquid that remained in the pot. I then added some cooked chickpeas, tasted it, and added a tiny bit more each of Bragg's, cayenne, and chipotle powder. I also added a little bit of lemon juice (didn't have fresh). Now I need to eat it because it's getting cold...

Quick Beans and Kale

The other day I was a bit hurried for dinner. I had some pre-cut kale in the fridge and was in the mood for beans. I threw a can of rinsed pinto beans and the kale in a pan with a little water. Once the kale was cooked through, I added some chipotle salsa, a little nutritional yeast, Bragg's liquid aminos, garlic powder, and tahini. It probably took around five minutes.

Other types of salsa could probably work. The chipotle salsa I used is not very hot, which is preferable in my case. I would've also enjoyed a salsa verde.

I used tahini to add a bit of creaminess since I don't use any sort of cheese nor oil. The nutritional yeast is commonly used by vegans to add a bit of a cheesy flavor.

Beans and greens are a good combo, it's just a matter of seasoning.

Sundried-Tomatoes and Olives in Various Dishes

I didn't buy sun-dried tomatoes nor olives for a while because they seemed too expensive. I'm realizing now that a little goes a long way as far as flavor goes, so if it's used more like a seasoning, it isn't really as expensive.

I've had a few dishes in the last few days with these ingredients as well as variations on a dijon dressing.

I made black rice, chopped zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, garlic, fresh basil, walnuts, dijon mustard, and red wine vinegar.

A couple days later, I cooked up some chopped broccoli, chopped zucchini, chick peas, garlic, and added some sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and a dijon dressing made from dijon mustard, tahini, and red wine vinegar.

The next similar dish I made was a salad made with red leaf lettuce, chick peas, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and the same tahini dijon dressing.

Today I made a salad with spinach, chopped zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, fresh basil, crushed walnuts, dijon mustard, garlic powder, and red wine vinegar.

I soak the sun-dried tomatoes for a little while, the chop them or cut them with clean scissors. I bought some kalamata-style black olives in a jar. I chop them up into small pieces. I've not been much of an olive fan, and they're not necessarily a health food according to some folks, but I found them to be a nice addition to my meals as of recently.

Curried Chickpeas with Coconut Cilantro Quinoa

Although more complicated than the Easy Quick Meal: Curry-seasoned grain and veggie dish I posted about before, this was really good for a whole foods plant-based dish.

I first got the quinoa going and in a separate pan, I toasted some cashews and coconut flakes that would later be added to the quinoa along with cilantro and lemon juice.

I water sauteed (see this link about healthy sauteeing- but you can use plain water) sliced carrots, chopped green chili, and garlic, plus a good amount of curry powder and a dash of Bragg's liquid aminos.  Then I added the coconut milk, chickpeas, and kale and cooked that up for a few minutes.  It was quite delicious.

Easy Quick Meal: Curry-seasoned grain and veggie dish

Here's a quick, easy, and cheap meal idea.  This works especially well if you have a pre-made batch of rice or quinoa, but you can cook some quinoa pretty quick or brown rice if you have a bit more time.  Although I don't like frozen veggies as much as fresh, it's good to have some frozen veggies on hand in case you run out of fresh.  My favorite for this dish is a carrots and peas combo.  Cauliflower would be good too.  You can cook up anything: garlic, onion, carrots, greens, sweet potato, eggplant, squash, etc. Tomatoes add a great flavor. Chickpeas are good in this too.

I suggest water sauteing the veggies, adding some curry powder to taste and some optional salt or Bragg's liquid aminos.  Adding extra garlic powder and/or lemon juice might minimize a desire for salt.  Stir in the cooked grains when the veggies are pretty much done, and heat until it's all hot if the grains had cooled.  You can also add some coconut milk if you have it on hand, and I especially like this with crushed cashews. 

As a general time-saver for the week, cook up a batch of maybe 2 cups dried rice or quinoa (per person) to use with different dishes.  Do this on a day you have an extra hour or so, perhaps even at the same time that you're cooking up a batch of beans, or doing housework.  You can read more about cooking quinoa here.  You should also view this article about how quinoa is becoming more expensive for those for whom it has been a staple in their diet.

Sweet Potatoes are More Healthy and Versatile that You Might Think

I put a sweet potato in the toaster oven to bake for lunch tomorrow and thought I'd share this somewhat new appreciation for this root veggie. I don't remember when I first had sweet potatoes, but it might have been in my Whole Foods Cuisine class- part of the nutrition program at the school I studied herbalism around 5 years ago. In that class I learned that usually what they call yams here are actually sweet potatoes. It's rare to actually find real yams in stores in this country. They are root veggies, but they're not closely related to sweet potatoes.

I might have been lucky that my family never served that sweet potato dish with marshmallows and sugar (something that passes off as part of the meal and not dessert?) during holidays. Sweet potatoes are sweet, but not nearly as sweet as that dish, and is of course a complex carbohydrate- a good carb.  Plus, as I mention below, it may even be beneficial for those with Type II diabetes or at risk.

I think sweet potatoes are a great veggie to have around because they're relatively cheap compared to a lot of vegetables. I buy them at $1.99/lb. and one half-pound sweet potato is good enough for a meal for me. It's something you can buy that doesn't rot as fast as other veggies if you don't use them right away. I have found that I can eat it baked with nothing on it, hot or cold. So assuming I think of it and throw one in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 350 or 375 degrees, I can just put it in a container and eat it later, like on my break at work. If I bake it, I don't eat the skin, but if I boil it, it's with the skin on. It boils up pretty quickly if cut in small pieces- I usually slice it thinly. Steaming is probably a more ideal method so you don't lose nutrients in the water. If you cook it in soup, you'll be consuming the water as well.

You can add salsa or some other sauce or dressing to a baked sweet potato. I once made coconut chutney that was so delicious with the sweet potato. I use sweet potato in similar ways as regular potatoes. It has a similar texture and the flavor isn't so strong that it doesn't work with most things. I make a potatoes "au gratin" with a miso and tahini sauce (equal parts miso and tahini, with some water for creaminess and usually some garlic powder and maybe some dijon mustard- this is just added to boiled sliced (sweet) potatoes and not baked) and I discovered that this is good with sweet potatoes. Sweet potato can be added to curries, Mexican dishes like with beans, and in salads. Use sweet potatoes as the starchy part of a meal (instead of grains) with green leafy veggies.

According to "The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods", sweet potato has been shown to help control blood sugar levels and "improve the response to the hormone insulin" (baking may increase the glycemic index, however). It contains carotenes- more the darker the sweet potato. They have vitamin C and B6, also manganese, copper, biotin, pantothenic acid (B5), B2 and fiber. A type of protein in sweet potatoes has anti-oxidant effects as well. According to the World's Healthiest Foods website,

It's important to have some fat in your sweet potato-containing meals if you want to enjoy the full beta-carotene benefits of this root vegetable. Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes.

There's also information on that website about compounds in sweet potatoes that have anti-inflammatory effects.

By the way, the leaves of the plant are edible as well.  Also if you happen to be able to get a good portion of the stem and leaves, I was informed that you can plant the stem (where it was broken off the rest) into the ground and it will propagate.  This actually worked in my experience.  You can also plant a "sprouting" sweet potato and get a new plant as well.  I did both of these at my last garden.

See also my post on Sweet Potato Breakfast.

Lettuce Wrap Bean Tacos

I was making dinner for myself, and initially I figured I'd make a bean dip to eat with carrots.  Since there was some lettuce to use up, the idea changed, although the bean dip didn't really.  I made a sort of hummus with black beans, adding nutritional yeast, cilantro, cayenne, and miso, along with the standard lemon juice, tahini, and garlic.  I decided it worked well as something like re-fried beans.  The lettuce would be a wrap, and then I decided to slice some yellow crook-neck squash ($1.99/lb vs. zucchini at $3.99 right now, and the two taste pretty similar).  It was kind of like a raw taco, except obviously my beans weren't raw, and the tahini probably wasn't either. 

I wished I had some tomatoes or something for more flavor and color.  Either way, this was pretty tasty.  The lettuce held up pretty well, although things got a little bit messy.  This was a pretty cheap healthy meal, although I couldn't tell you how much it costs.

How I ate Kale 8 Meals in a Row

Mung beans with Kale and a lemon dijon sauce

It occurred to me that I was eating a lot of kale the past couple days and I noticed that I had had kale for 7 meals in a row and decided to go for 8 with my dinner. 

For lunch two days ago I made the Smoky Kale Soup I posted about earlier.  Then I had kale salad with dinner. The next morning for breakfast my partner made chili that included kale (I know, chili for breakfast is a bit odd, but it works).  At lunch I had leftover soup, then dinner was mung beans with kale and lemon dijon sauce (I plan to write a bit about mung beans- it's very fast to cook and goes with anything in my opinion).  Breakfast this morning was a pineapple blueberry kale smoothie, and for lunch: the last of the leftover soup.  I threw in kale with my quinoa w/ beans and tomatoes for dinner.
 

Quinoa and beans with tomatoes and kale

My quinoa bean dish tonight also had lemon juice, salsa, and pumpkin seeds added.

I actually use a bag of "organic kale salad" which includes some shredded carrots and cabbage.  It's $4.99/lb which is a pretty good deal if you use the whole thing, especially because it's pre-cut, but I think it's also cheaper than buying it the regular way, although the weight of a bunch seems to vary, as does the price at times.  I also recently found that I can buy frozen kale at $1.99/lb, although it's not organic and has more stems in it than I prefer.  However, that's what I used in my soup and my smoothie and it worked out well.

Smoky Kale Soup

Chipotle, peanut butter, and greens sounded like a good combo to me, so I made a soup yesterday by cooking then blending up some roasted bell peppers, kale, garlic, chipotle powder, a dash of liquid smoke, onion powder, and Bragg's liquid aminos in water.  While blending it, I added some fresh orange juice and peanut butter.  Then I reheated it with some frozen corn and chopped sun-dried tomatoes (I didn't realize that the cheaper sun-dried tomatoes I bought had salt added-oops). 

This is the sort of thing I would not have made a year ago, but I found it to be quite delicious.  It's good to be flexible and creative so you can use up ingredients that might go bad, and avoid forgoing a recipe simply because you don't have an ingredient.  It's fun to look at various recipes just for inspiration.  Of course if you're new to cooking or have little confidence, then it makes perfect sense to follow a recipe so you can avoid having to eat something that just didn't work out right.

Blending a lot of greens in a soup is a really good way to eat a lot of greens at once which is great for your health.  Sure, a lot of the nutrients come out of the veggies when they're cooking, but they're in the water that's part of the soup.  It's hard to stick with the recommendations to chew veggies, especially green leafies really thoroughly to get all the nutrients, especially if you're in a hurry such as on a break at work.  A soup like this, which you might even enjoy cold, is a good way to consume greens which are pretty much pre-chewed by a blender.  By the way, I do not have a Vitamix, and my veggies blend just fine thanks.  Just remember to let it cool enough before you start blending because hot liquids can create pressure in the blender that causes it to splatter out.  I saw a chef accidentally do it on a show, which was a better reminder than making that mistake myself.

I apologize for making no effort to figure out how much this soup costs, or providing a recipe.  I just threw it together and don't have a good sense of quantity to guess well.

I was thinking about putting in some sweet potato or carrot.  Since I didn't buy or roast the bell peppers myself, it is something I wanted to add, but if I were making a cheap version of this, I would probably skip that.  If I had put more thought into this, I would have put in fresh onion, but since my veggies were roasted bell peppers which were already cooked, and kale which cooks quickly, this made for a really quick soup.  Also beans would've made this good as well.

Lunch Salad

Red cabbage, dino kale, carrots, and crushed cashews with a dressing made from tamari, ginger juice, garlic powder, and coconut vinegar. Pretty good.

Beans and Quinoa Salad with Blood Oranges

The other day for lunch we had seasoned black beans and corn, cilantro lime/orange quinoa (made sort of like cilantro lime rice), blood oranges, pumpkin seeds, and chipotle salsa on a bed of chopped lettuce (i wish i had avocado, but i added tahini for some creaminess)