vegan creamed corn and stuffed cabbage

Note: This post was previously published here as a part of my freelance work, and was written by my darling boyfriend, Adam. 

Stuffed cabbage is the epitome of Eastern European comfort food. From Kensington to Krakow, every Polish grandma has this dish in her repertoire. Traditionally, cabbage leaves are wrapped around ground beef or pork and baked in tomato sauce (and heaps of butter) to create this beautifully simplistic staple.  If you’ve never enjoyed the traditional, rustic-style stuffed cabbage, try this recipe.

Indeed, it’s hard to improve upon such a time-honored classic, so we simply adapted it to what’s available in your recent CSA pick-ups.  In place of tomato sauce, we used last pick-up’s Winter Sun Farms frozen corn to make a creamy corn sauce. Normally we’re averse to frozen food, but this corn—as apposed to the factory-farmed institutional variety—was harvested locally in August at it’s apex of ripeness and flavor.  It’s delicious.  We pureed it with coconut milk and man, it’s a knock out.  The richness and subtle sweetness of the coconut milk sings a beautiful harmony with the corn’s summery-sweet melody.

We also uncovered some Winter Sun Farms frozen edamame (from many CSA’s past) in our freezer and decided it would work well to round out the dish.  Any type of hearty bean will work just as well.  This vegetarian stuffed cabbage, like its more traditional cousin, is deeply flavorful, filling, and, most importantly, comforting.

“Creamed” Corn:

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, diced

2 cups (1 bag) Winter Sun Farm frozen corn

2 cups coconut milk

2 Tbl white wine vinegar

1 Tbl thyme

1 tsp red pepper flake

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large sauce pan, sweat onions in olive oil over medium heat until they become translucent.

Add in frozen corn, vinegar, thyme and pepper flake and cook for about five minutes or until the corn is thawed and tender.

Pour in the coconut milk and bring it to a simmer.  Let the corn cook for about 10 minutes.

Puree using an immersion blender, adding more coconut milk if necessary to achieve a creamy consistency.

Season to taste with salt in pepper and reserve for later.

Stuffed Cabbage

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Yield: 6 stuffed cabbages

Ingredients:

2 cups brown rice, cooked previously 

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup shelled edamame beans

1 head of cabbage

Directions

Blanch edamame in boiling water for 1 min and shock in a bowl of ice water. Sauté the onions on medium heat in olive and cook until tender, then mix in the blanched edamame. Mix onions and beans with rice and reserve as the stuffing for the cabbage

Remove the outer most leaves of the cabbage and discard.  Gently tear a few leaves off and trim any large stems or veins away.

Blanch cabbage leaves in boiling water until they become soft, pliable and translucent, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer them to a bowl of ice water to shock them.

After blanching about 10 or so leaves, place them on a clean towel to dry.

Lay a cabbage leaf flat on a cutting board and spoon about 1/4 cup of rice and edamame onto the center of the leaf.  Fold the leaf’s right and left sides vertically over the filling, then roll the leaf horizontally like a burrito.  Repeat until all filling is used.  

Place the stuffed cabbages into a 11’x7’ baking pan and top generously with the “creamed” corn.

Bake in a 350F degree oven for about 45 minutes or until browned.

vegan savory squash bread

Note: This post was previously published here as a part of my freelance work.

This week’s recipe is the lesser-known cousin of pumpkin bread: squash bread. Using the basic principles listed below, you can prepare it sweet or savory, but with the holidays, I thought we’d try the latter. Throw in some cranberries, onions, rosemary, and quinoa, and it becomes a great addition for holiday feasts. So that everyone in your circle and have a chance at enjoying it, I thought I'd make it vegan. If you’d rather skip the vegan route, you can forgo the flax and almond milk mixture, and swap in two eggs. Your host, whether vegan or not, will be thrilled when you show up on their door step with this seasonal number.

Ingredients:

¼ cup tricolor quinoa

¼ cup filtered water

2 Tbsp ground flax seeds

¼ cup plain, unsweetened almond milk

¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 medium onion, diced

2 sprigs rosemary

1 tsp sea salt, divided

1½ cups whole-wheat flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

1 cup mashed butternut squash

¾ cup water

2 tsp unpasteurized apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup raw cranberries

Directions:

1. Place the quinoa a small pot with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer for 15 minutes or until all water is evaporated. Remove from heat and let cool.

2. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9” pie dish with baking sheet or grease with coconut oil.

3. Whisk flax and soy milk in a medium bowl and set aside.

4. Warm 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Add one sprig of rosemary, picking leaves off the stem, and removing the stem. Reduce heat and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

5. Mix flour, baking powder and baking soda into a medium bowl. 

6. Add squahs, water, vinegar, and salt to the flax-soy milk mixture and whisk until smooth. Add remaining ¼ cup olive oil, whisk again and add flour mixture. Use a rubber spatula to stir mixture gently until almost combined, then fold in 1/4 cup cooked quinoa, onions, and cranberries.

7. Pour batter into pie dish, decorate with a sprig of rosemary and a sprinkle with remaining quinoa. 

8. Bake 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

9, Remove from oven and let cool or eat warm.  

picante watermelon salsa

Note: This post was previously published here as a part of my freelance work.

This recipe has one foot in the Mediterranean and another in South America. It’s core is zesty with a spicy cilantro kick, but nuances are added with Greek feta and taming olive oil. The sweet flavor of watermelon shines against the tongue-tingling salty spicy flavor, and the chopped peppers and onion add a little crunch to keep the textural game balanced. Paired with blue corn chips, the dish makes a great party pleaser. 

Ingredients:

1/2 a small watermelon (or approx. 5 cups chopped)

1/2 cup feta 

1/4 medium red onion, chopped

5 shishito peppers, cut in half & sliced into small pieces

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup chopped cilantro

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

juice from 1 lemon

2 tbs olive oil

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp red pepper flake

salt & pepper to taste

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix. 

2. Let chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 min.

3. Serve with blue corn chips.

fall-spiced pumpkin seed butter

This post was previously published on Free People's BLDG 25 blog. 

Nothing marks the season quite like pumpkins do! It’s the perfect time of year to try your hand at pumpkin seed butter. Since it’s made with seeds, the recipe is a great alternative for those of you allergic to peanuts or other nuts. It’s also vegan and gluten-free for all of those restricted dieters out there. Pumpkin seeds are full of protein and omega-3’s to help you stay well-nourished for fall. Add a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and maple syrup for sweetness. With each bite you’ll taste all the glories of the season.

INGREDIENTS:  (fills 1 – 8oz. mason jar)

2 Cups Pumpkin Seeds

½ Tbsp Cinnamon

1 Tsp Nutmeg

1 Tsp Allspice

2 Tbsp Maple Syrup (the real kind)

4 Pinches Salt

1 Tbsp Ghee (coconut oil works too)

Water as needed

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350F

In a mixing bowl, combine pumpkin seeds, ghee, and spices. Stir so that the seeds are well coated.

Spread mixture evenly across a foil-lined cookie tray and toast seeds for 15 minutes. Once they are toasted, remove from oven and let cool.

Add one cup of seeds to a food processor along with two pinches of salt and one tablespoon of maple syrup. Blend until well chopped and then add a tablespoon of water. Continue to blend and add water until you reach the desired consistency.

Remove from food processor, and repeat step four with your second cup of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Enjoy with your favorite fall treats like freshly-picked apples!

banana almond crunch "ice cream"

I completed a Whole30 about a month ago. Doing so taught me a lot about skipping dairy and going vegan. I quickly came to realize that I wasn't going to be able to live with out a sweet treat once in awhile, and I had to figure out ways to satisfy the craving in a vegan, no added sugar kind of way. Following a restricted diet, it's important to concentrate on what you can eat and finding ways for those foods to satisfy your needs. I happen to consider ice cream on a hot summer day a need, and so this vegan banana ice cream was born. Not only is it dairy-free, but it also has the added benefit of some nutrient blasting maca powder as well.

Ingredients (serves 1):

2 Bananas

1/2 Cup Almonds

1 Tbsp. Maca Powder

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

Pinch of Sea Salt

Directions:

1. Slice banana and lay pieces out on a piece of wax paper

2. Roll the piece of wax paper up, making sure a layer of wax paper is in between slices. Stick in the freezer for at least 1 hour to freeze bananas.

3. Chop almonds in a food processor and set aside in a small dish. Add bananas to the food processor and blend until an ice cream texture is reached.

4. Add maca powder, almonds, and vanilla. Blend a bit more until all is evenly mixed in.

5. Garnish with sea salt and eat right away, or store in freezer.

superfood cereal: hot quinoa, blueberries, maca, and ginger

About a year ago, I used to eat hot quinoa with maca powder for breakfast on the regular. Over the summer I somehow forgot about it, but I'm happy to say that it has recently reappeared on my menu. It all happened because I got these blueberries in my CSA box. I decided to prepare them as filling for homemade poptarts for Kristina's birthday. I am not a baker, though. My wholewheat pie crust failed, and I was left with this jar of awesomely sweet, ginger blueberries. I needed a new purpose for them, and I thought they would go great with breakfast. And so, the hot quinoa cereal popped into my mind, and made its reappearance on the scene... 

Combined with the ginger blueberry mixture, this is probably one of the best things you can eat for breakfast. Quinoa is protein loaded while blueberries give you a kick of antioxidants, ginger balances your digestive track, and maca powder loads you up with vital minerals. Essentially, this cereal will give you energy, keep the toxins out, and make everything run smoothly. It's also warm and comforting, perfect for those winter months. 

Now, what better way to start off the day?

Ingredients (serves 2):

1 Cup Quinoa

2 Cups Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

Blueberry Ginger Ingredients (makes 1, 8oz jar):

1.5 Cup Frozen or Fresh Blueberries 

1/2 Cup Cane Sugar

2 Tbsp Agave Nectar

1 Tsp Vanilla

1/2 Inch Ginger, peeled and finely grated

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

Directions:

1. At least 2 hours before you want to make your cereal, stir blueberry mixture ingredients together in a jar, and let it sit in the refrigerator to take on flavor.

2. Place quinoa and almond milk into a sauce pan. Over a medium/low flame, simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the quinoa is cooked, but is slightly soupy. Stir it every now and then during the simmering process.

3. Pour quinoa into bowls and then spoon desired amount of blueberry mixture over top.

4. Mix up and eat.

home roasted vegan tomato soup

Right now, in the depths of winter, there is nothing I love more than a bowl of hot soup. It's comforting and healthy all at the same time. I've made it a ritual to cook a giant pot of soup every Sunday during this time of year. What I do is freeze half, and then take the rest for lunches during the week. It's a great way to have easy, ready-to-eat meals around that aren't tv dinners. We all know how much I love chemically preserved resemblances of food.

Anywho, I made this guy the other day, and I have to say, I'm extremely proud of it. It tasted....orgasmic. I love creamed soups, but can't bring myself to ingest that amount of high fat dairy. So instead, I made a little experiment with some coconut milk, and it came out a vegan phenomen. There is something so satisfying about making something from scratch, and the added bonus points for making it vegan put me on cloud nine. This tomato soup is the ultimate comfort food, pair it with a piece of multigrain toast that has avocado smeared on top and your set. Your welcome. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

15 Medium Vine Tomatoes

2 Small Yellow Onions

1 Celery Stalk

7g Oregano

7g Basil

5 Sprigs Thyme

3 Garlic Cloves

1 Can Coconut Milk

1 Cup Orzo

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F

2. Cut tomatoes in half, and lay them out on a foil-lined cookie sheet that has been greased with a bit of olive oil.

3. Drizzle tomatoes with some more olive oil on top and then roast for about 20 minutes, until skins begin to shrivel and split.

4. While your tomatoes are roasting, finely chop your onion and celery keeping them separate  and then clean and chop the herbs. 

5. Once you take your tomatoes out of the oven, begin sauteing onions and whole garlic in a bit of olive oil over a low/medium flame.

6. Once your onions are completely see through, kill the flame, stir in herbs, and let sit.

7. Now you will want to peel the skins off of your tomatoes. Because you roasted them, they should come off very simply by just using your fingers. Be careful, they might still be a bit hot, but it's easiest to peel when they are.

8. Using a hand blender (or food processor if you don't have one) puree onion and garlic mixture.

9. Add in 2/3 of your tomatoes and coconut milk, and then puree until creamy.

10. Add the rest of your tomatoes, and then puree just a bit, so they are still a slightly chunky (if you like some chunk, if not, just add all of the tomatoes in step 9).

11. Put everything in a pot back on the stove over a low flame, and add orzo and celery.

12. Stirring constantly so that you don't get exploding soup, cook for another 15 minutes. 

13. Let sit until orzo is fully cooked, and then serve or let chill and freeze.

apricot and purple potato samosas with honey yogurt sauce

What's more fun than purple potatoes? Now really. Its like the natural equivalent to green ketchup: one of your favorite childhood foods in a fun color. They're plenty full of carotenoids which will help eliminate free radicals in your body, essentially detoxing the cells and keeping them pure. They're also crazy fun to cook with for the only reason being that they are so much fun to look at. 

So when I went home to cook my mom dinner, I threw these guys in there. I muddied them up with some fantastic Indian spices. Then I threw in some game changing apricots and walnuts, and rolled them in fillo dough.  To flash fry these little table footballs, I opted for healthy sesame oil, a favorite of Ayurvedic practitioners and ancient cultures of the west. To top them off, I paired the samosas with a  sweet yogurt dipping sauce, the easiest thing you'll ever make.Yum. Sweet, nutty, aromatic  and full of soft potato texture, these guys were a huge hit.

Samosa Ingredients (makes a dozen):

3 Purple potatoes, peeled, boiled, and mashed lightly with a fork

3/4 Cup Chopped Turkish Apricots

1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts

2 Tsp Indian Curry Powder

1/2 Tsp Tumeric

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1 Tsp Salt

1 Pkg Fillo Dough Sheets 

*be sure to remove dough from the freezer and place it on the counter at least an hour before you plan to use

Yogurt Sauce Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Greek Yogurt

1 Tbsp Honey

1/2 Tsp Marsala Seasoning

Directions:

1. Mix together all samosa ingredients except for the fillo dough. Make sure that your potatoes still have a little bit of chunk to them, and then let everything sit until room temperature.

2. Mix together dipping sauce ingredients, and let it chill in the fridge while you finish making the samosas. 

3. Unrolling your fillo dough and using a big knife, cut the end of your sheet into a 3"-4" strip.

4. Take a heaping tablespoon of your mixture, and form it into a little triangle. Place the triangle on the bottom left-hand corner of your fillo dough strip. Continue to roll it up like a table football.

5. Once you've rolled it up, do it once more so that the samosa has two layers of dough.

6. Once you've rolled all of your samosas, pour about a 1/2" of sesame oil into your frying pan, and let it get hot. 

7. Fry samosa's 1-2 minutes on each side, until lightly browned

8. Serve with sauce

vegan spicy thai seitan salad

I finally recreated a dish that I used to love before turning vegetarian! When I decided to go veg I did it party to avoid processed foods which also meant no imitation meat. Some of my old favorite dishes could be pulled off with tofu, but for spicy Thai beef salad, it just didn't quite cut it. 

I then discovered seitan about a year ago, and heard that it was possible to make at home using whole wheat flour and vital wheat gluten. Anything that I can cook up in my own kitchen by stirring a few whole ingredients together and adding heat is unprocessed enough for me. 

This was my first time cooking with the stuff, and I'll admit, I didn't make the seitan myself this time around. I will surely try, but for now, I just wanted to see how it acted. I was very, very pleased with the results and even made my coworker try the salad out because I needed to share it with someone. It tastes much like the original spicy Thai Salad - bright with a kick of spice - and makes a great lunch option. An added bonus for all you vegetarians out there, it's also chock full of healthy protein.

Ingredients:

18 oz. seitan

3 scallions, sliced fine

1/3 cucumber, shredded

3 baby carrots, shredded

15 sprigs cilantro, minced

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 tbsp chili sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl

2. Place in the refrigerator over night, and serve on large leaves of lettuce.

*Tip: wrap it up like a burrito for a fun way to eat