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American Flatbread Pizza – Vegan Harvest

11 Feb

Thomas noticed this pizza eyeing us from the freezer section the last time we were at Whole Foods, so I grabbed two boxes to try.

I must say, after a lot of searching, I have finally found my favorite vegan frozen pizza!

I’m not sure how long they’ve been making the vegan harvest, because it’s made with delicious Daiya goodness, but I hope they always continue to do so! The name is a litle deceiving, because the “harvest” part makes me think it should have a bunch of veggies on top. However, the “flatbread” part translates to a thin, wood fired earthen oven baked, perfect crust, that actually has a crust all the way around! Big points for that too, as I hate frozen pizzas without a border (I’m looking at you Tofurky!) . Not only that, but it doesn’t taste like a plain ole cheese frozen pizza. It’s got a lovely garlic thing going on too.

This is my new, cheaper answer to ordering delivery. Which is really important for me, because as much as I crave raw foods from my green smoothie drinking, the backlash is that I also crave pizza! ; )

Right now you can get a $1 off coupon from their website too that’s valid through 2012, so print away! I would love to see an additional vegan option with some of the gourmet toppings they have on their cheese pizzas like caramelized onions and sun dried tomatoes. For now I’m thrilled about this new find.

Have you tried it? What did you think? What’s your favorite frozen vegan pizza?

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Sinfully Good Salad Bar

7 Feb

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Work was a little crazy this morning, so I wasn’t able to get out early enough to go home for lunch. Which also meant I wasn’t going to get to eat that raw caesar topped with leftover marinated tofu that I had been looking forward to. So I decided to hit the Whole Foods buffet instead. I got this monster of a salad which included:

Lots of kale, carrots, broccoli slaw, zucchini, red peppers, quinoa, wheat berries, lentils, sunflower seeds, buffalo tofu, lemon juice, dill & nutritional yeast.

I enjoyed this SO much, and it totally hit the spot for a mostly raw lunch, with some cooked grains/proteins. I saved most of the buffalo tofu for Thomas, because it’s his favorite, but pretty much killed this massive salad! : )

I love that Whole Foods has a buffet for when you can’t actually get to your own kitchen!  

Angelica Home Kitchen custom sammies

7 Feb

When I asked Thomas yesterday what he’d like to eat in the next few days, he asked me to make the yummy sandwiches I accidentally came up with a while back trying to recreate the Sam or I sandwich from Angelica Kitchen in New York. Instead of the kraut and seaweed that appear on said sandwich, I use oven roasted carrots and onions, and some steamed greens. For variety, any of their sandwiches can easily be made into a bowl, by serving over a grain instead of bread. All of the recipes come from their cookbook, Angelica Home Kitchen (available cheapest on their website). I was happy that at least if we were eating cooked food, we’re eating some quality macrobiotic deliciousness! Regardless, after eating some of the leftovers for lunch today, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in how I felt eating cooked food again. I missed the lighter feeling of eating raw, and am thinking lunch is probably a great time to continue to do so.

The recipe for Soba Sensation sauce makes a lot (a whole spaghetti jar’s worth) but I’m going to use the rest of it over a package of soba noodles later in the week as a bed for some [made from their cookbook] Candle 79 crusted seitan. Oh and P.S., Thomas is making seitan this week, the long way, from actual bread flour using Candle’s recipe. So wish him luck! ; )

Baked Tofu with Lemon-Rosemary Marinade, pg. 105

I made a double batch because there is a tofu eating monster that lives in my house, and also because the other recipes make so much!

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Oven-Roasted Onions and Carrots, pg. 168

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Steamed Greens, pg. 99 (Just steam them for 5 minutes. That’s it.)

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Soba Sensation Sauce, pg. 209

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That’s a tasty sandwich! Served on sprouted grain bread.

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Dip, dip, hooRAW! More Terry Hope Testing & Avocado Salsa

5 Feb

Finished!

I’m pleased to report back to you on the results of two raw dips I tested this weekend. One was my little creation based on the tomato and avocado that needed using in my fridge, and the second, another recipe from Terry’s upcoming book for Mexican Pumpkin Seed Pate (Sikil Pak).

This avocado salsa is kind of like guacamole and pico de gallo had a baby… and then threw in some corn for fun. :) It’s delicious.

Avocado Salsa

1 ripe haas avocado
2 tbsp. of lime juice
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped finely
2-3 tbsp. of finely chopped white onion
1 minced garlic clove
1 large handful of cilantro, chopped finely
1/4 c. of fresh or frozen corn kernels*, optional
salt & pepper, to taste
cayenne pepper or 1/2 a jalapeño, chopped finely, optional

Directions:

1. Scoop out avocado into a bowl. Add lime juice. Add all other ingredients, and mash to desired consistency. Eat fresh or chill in the fridge to let flavors combine further.

*If using frozen corn kernals, just run them under some warm water in a fine mesh sieve before adding.

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Terry Hope Romero’s Mexican Pumpkin Seed Pate (Sikil Pak)

I was attracted to it since it was a raw recipe, and we do love a tasty dip for snacking or entertaining guests. The reviews that were already in were sort of a mixed bag, but it sounded like something we would like, so I decided to give it a go.

I started out with half of the suggested amount of water and got a chunkier dip, but then further thinned with the full suggested amount just to see if it smoothed out. It still retained the grainy texture, at least in my food processer, but if you want it creamy I’m sure a high powered blender would do the trick. She tells you to process to a chunky hummus texture.

Recipe called for soaking the seeds. I left mine soaking for about 5 hours.

A potent blend of pumpkin seeds, garlic, onion, cilantro, etc.

Finished!

Results:  This was pretty powerful stuff. The raw onion and garlic give it a heck of a bite, and it ended up tasting kind of like guacamole. We ate some fresh out of the food processor, and then wrapped it up in the fridge for later. We served it as a late snack for friends, and they loved it. An omni’s response: It’s fantastic. You could serve this to people, and they’d never know it was vegan. ; ) Hah, so there you go! I would definitely make this again.

And now here is a picture of Boris, for good measure. I caught him sleeping on the kitchen table and he was a little to sleepy to jump off immediately, so I snapped up his groggy, guilty little face. ;)

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Terry Hope Testing: White Bean Farro Soup & Tofu

2 Feb

So I’m very pleased to report that I made good on my promise, and finally got to testing some recipes from Terry Hope Romero’s upcoming book. I chose the white bean farro soup, because the ingredients seemed like they’d be tasty together and easy to find (many others that have caught my eye had hard to find ingredients), and then I decided to try out her basic tofu recipe [which was already closed due to enough feedback] to serve on the side.

When it came to finding the farro at WF, I was totally blind. Because the first isle I went to to look for it (the rice & grains isle) was actually the last place I found it. I don’t know why, but I kept missing it. I also read pretty much every bin they had, three times to make sure it wasn’t there. But low and behold, it was there the whole time, staring me in the face. I’m so glad I did  find it though, because this soup came out AWESOME.

Oh, hi!

rinsed and resting to dry while i prep the veggies

After mincing the garlic by hand I got lazy and threw the rest of the veggies into the fp to make it easy.

Making chickpea parm for topping the soup.

chickpea parm dough ball

chickpea parm, spread to cool.

Tofu came out almost burned and a bit overcooked. Still tasted good, just needs the baking time cut down a bit. Pan is still soaking!

Chickpea parm, not as finely textured as I was supposed to, but really tasty.

All together now.

Results:

I LOVED the soup! The farro had a lovely chewy texture, and the flavors were really lively and fresh, especially with the addition of the bright chickpea parm. I added in the optional spinach, but it also called for parsley, so it was nice to have lots of green in my cooked soup. The tofu tasted great, it was just a little tough, but baking for my customary 30 minutes would take care of that, and it was well seasoned and had a surprising amount of heat [for a basic recipe] which I appreciated.

So off to a good start! I have two other recipes of hers that I want to make, one is a raw dip (yay, raw!) and the other is pending my finding an ingredient. I thought I’d take a chance since other people seemed to be able to find gyoza wrappers, but I didn’t yet.

Stay tuned!

What’s Cookin’?

31 Jan

LJ & I at Sweat Records post waffles! : )


When I went out to lunch with my mom last Friday, she pointed out that it had been almost a month that I’d been eating high raw. She asked what most people had been starting to ask… was I going to keep it up?!

Here’s the thing, I really did it as a detox. From the beginning, I had no set plans on how long it would last, I would just keep doing it until I didn’t feel like doing it anymore. I was also hoping I’d maybe drop a couple pounds, but after nearly a month, that didn’t end up happening. Really, I can only conclude that my body is not only excellent at maintaining homeostasis, but that it is at a normal, healthy weight, and I should just be happy about it.

Even though I look kind fat in that picture, my BMI is 21, which falls in the normal category. Want to know yours? Click here! Here’s what it says…

BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9 (Normal Weight)
People whose BMI is within 18.5 to 24.9 possess the ideal amount of body weight, associated with living longest, the lowest incidence of serious illness, as well as being perceived as more physically attractive than people with BMI in higher or lower ranges. However, it may be a good idea to check your Waist Circumference and keep it within the recommended limits.

Further, I will continue to include raw meals in our regular eating.

This morning driving into work, and watching all the ducks walking around, I had a thought. With ducks, as long as they continue to eat their normal mostly vegan diet (along with some bugs) they are normal and healthy. But when they are fed people food like bread and processed snacks, they’re life span is cut down to a fraction of what it would normally be, and they start presenting with all kinds of diseases. So yes, humans have evolved with a long history of cooked foods and grains, but we’ve also had a long recorded history of disease and cancer, so I’m going to take a cue from some other animals in nature, and try keep plenty of fresh raw foods in our diet too. And now that I’m back on green smoothies, I have no intention of quitting again. Especially since I now know for sure it wasn’t them that I was allergic too. (It seems to be mushrooms & D2!)

My transitioning back to cooked foods really started Saturday. We had a nice lunch with my mom at Juice n Java, and I ordered a salad with some [cooked] quinoa and some fresh juice. Later that night we had Taco Bell fresco bean burritos for dinner, and Sunday we met up with LJ of [the recently abandoned for tumblr]  itsveganlicious.com for the Sweat Records vegan waffle party. Here is my pretty little waffle… covered with lots of fresh fruit! image

LJ & I at Sweat Records post waffles! : )

Monday I went to the Bombay Cafe, got my [vegan] lunch special and proceeded to pig out! I was full for what seemed like forever! So good!

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I did just get two new raw books that I will be testing intermittently, but I also remembered: Hey! I’m supposed to be testing recipes for Terry Hope Romero’s new book!! With all the holidays, and traveling, and eating raw food for the last month, I have not tested one single recipe, so it will now be my purpose to start doing that immediately. My shopping list has already been made, and I’m getting off the computer and heading to Whole Foods as soon as I’m done with this post, so expect to see some of that coming this way in the following weeks, and more raw food peppered in too!

As always, thanks for reading and sharing! You have made January the best month of cpv.com yet, with nearly 3K hits! :D

<3,
Ty

Happy Friday, Green Smoothie

27 Jan

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I was way too tired to go to whole foods last night, even though I was out of greens for my morning smoothie, but I figured I’d be able to throw something together. This is that something.

Today’s smoothie includes the usual base of raisins, water, agave, flax seed, banana, mango and just a little pineapple, but added an apple, 2 small stalks of celery, mint, parsley, ginger and half a bag of frozen broccoli! Surprisingly tasty, the celery, ginger, mint, and parsley give it a little zing.

Raw Vegan Nachos

25 Jan

So maybe seeing raw vegan nachos on Greenwave’s menu stuck with me, or maybe it’s just that I really love nachos… either way, I had raw vegan nachos on the brain. After reading a few recipes for sauces, I figured I had some pretty good ideas of my own to try, and took to the Vitamix. I think the secret to this sauce is really the smoked paprika. A nod to what makes Bang, Bang Cafe in Seattle’s vegan mac so good. I put a bit more turmeric, smoked paprika and cayenne than what’s listed below, but that’s a good place to start, and then you can customize it to your palette.

I really love the flexibility and creativity I’m feeling with raw food. It’s great to have so many fresh ingredients on hand and just use what I’m in the mood for, or what needs to be used up. For the nachos, I cut up the last three pieces of raw onion bread I picked up Saturday at Greenwave. They were starting to get crispy from sitting in the fridge, so they really worked well. For toppings I used the last of some romaine I had, a big handful of chopped cilantro, a seeded, chopped tomato, and a few sliced kalamata olives. Then I drizzled it all with this raw vegan nacho cheese sauce. I didn’t use any additional water because I liked the thick consistency, so I started with about 1.5 cups worth, and used about 1/2 cup of it. I saved the rest for another use.

This is obviously a limitless recipe of possibilities, and I must say… the sauce came out AWESOME! :)

Raw Vegan Nacho Cheese
makes 1.5-2 cups, depending on consistency

1 c. of raw cashews

1/2 yellow bell pepper
1/4 c. of water, plus more if you want it a little thinner
~1/2 tsp. olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/2 a small shallot or a little bit of onion
~ 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika (or more)
~ 1/2 tsp. turmeric (or more)
2 pinches of salt
cayenne pepper, optional

Directions:

1. Put dry cashews in a high powered blender or food processor and chop until they’re a fine powder.

2. Add all other ingredients, and blend until smooth. Adjust seasonings and thin with additional water as desired. If using a vitamix, you can blend a bit longer to warm mixture a bit. I just held the carafe to monitor the temp.

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Greenwave Cafe – Plantation, Fl

24 Jan

We finally got to try Greenwave Cafe! I’ve had a friend telling me for years that I needed to go, but it was especially nice since we’ve eating mostly raw. At some point they expanded their hours too, to include dinner, making it more accessible for us.

Since we started the high raw eating during the week, weekends are our whatever we feel like eating time. After having pizza & breadsticks for dinner Friday night, and leftovers for brunch on Saturday, I was ready to eat something a little fresher. We were kind of already in the area since I made Thomas go with me to the Le Creuset outlet (I was good! didn’t buy anything!), but by the time we got there I was a little carsick and pretty famished. It was quite busy and all the tables seemed to be full when we arrived, but then some people waiting for pick-up orders got up, and we were able to get a table pretty quickly.

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I explained my “I just need to eat something, quick” situation to the gentleman that came to our table, and he said he knew just what I meant. He asked if we would like soup or salad, because he could get us those right away, and soup or salad comes with all the entrees. Once he told us the soup was curried butternut squash, we were sold.

This restaurant is all raw vegan, so I was expecting cold soup, but this soup came surprisingly warm, and was SO DELICIOUS! It was creamy and spicy and ended way too soon. We speculated that I  might be able to make a similar soup in my Vitamix and just let it get warmed to a not too high temperature like this one. (Raw food is generally food that is not cooked/warmed over 115-120*F, for those not in the know.)

PS-I read in one of my books that you can heat soups on the stove over low heat using your finger as a thermometer to not let it get too hot.

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For dinner we decided to order the burrito and vegan cheese burger, and split them. The cheese burger came with some unfortunate mushrooms on top (fortunate for Thomas), and were scraped onto a certain fungi loving boy’s plate. (But I still got a little itchy later after eating my half, but no hives!) I guess I should really remember to ask if things come with mushrooms. I always forget about them if they’re not listed because they’re so out of my conscious thoughts.

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Thomas & I thought both of the dishes were really good, but we both thought the burrito was the better dish. It was just SUPER tasty. The cheeseburger came served on their “famous” raw onion bread, which I bought a package of before we left. The burger was slighty sweet, but they assured me there weren’t any additional ‘shrooms in the patty.

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Thomas & I are admittedly pumpkin fans, so when we saw pumpkin ice cream listed on the wall of desserts, we both knew we had to order it. I also ordered a slice of chocolate banana pie, in case that wasn’t enough. ;) Of course we LOVED the pumpkin ice cream and further discussed how I could recreate it at home. It definitely tasted like pumpkin, almonds?, and spices, so I’ll be testing some ideas out. The chocolate banana pie came sprinkled with coconut flakes (which Thomas doesn’t like, so I scraped some off sections for him) but couldn’t compete with it’s icy, orange hued sister.

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After this we were pretty full. We only ate half the pie, and barely finished the ice cream. Which was surprising, because we didn’t feel that full after the dinner courses, but I guess it caught up to us. That’s been the most surprising thing all and all about eating this way… how full you can get on seemingly light meals.

Greenwave Cafe is a casual restaurant, with a well priced menu and friendly staff, and they will certainly be getting a lot more business from us. They’re open 11:00 am – 9 pm Tuesday – Saturday, and host an Organic Indoor Farmers Market 8 am – 2 pm on Mondays (Cafe Closed on Monday & Sunday). Located at 5221 West Broward Blvd Plantation, Fl 33317, and reachable by (954) 581 8377 & www.greenwavecafe.org.

High Raw, Week Two: Kale Salad & Thai Wraps

22 Jan

So this week we continued on our raw journey, though it wasn’t full raw; we added in some grains. Thomas had some grits for breakfast a few days this week, and we had that brown rice. We also ate a whole loaf of sprouted grain bread, most often toasted.

After I made the brown rice to go with the beet burgers on Monday, I ate the leftovers for lunch Tuesday with some sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast, and dijon mixed in. It was tasty and filling, but it felt heavy after all my raw food eating, and all I craved for the rest of the day was a kale salad, in the worst way! So for dinner I came home and made a BIG kale salad adapted from The 30 Minute Vegan‘s Rainbow Kale Salad, pg. 138 (amongst other things, I added a pear for some sweetness),  and a whole lot of Thai Wraps adapted from RAW FOOD real world. This made so much that we were able to eat this yumminess for days (the latter is actually an appetizer recipe for 12), a major plus.

Kale Salad

1 bunch of kale, stems removed and chopped into tiny pieces
1 half green cabbage, shredded and chopped
1 grated carrot
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped finely
1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped finely
1 green pear, finely chopped

Dressing:

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. evoo
1 garlic clove, grated
1 tsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. braggs
pinch of cayenne

Directions: Combine salad ingredients in a very large bowl. Whisk dressing ingredients and massage dressing into salad with clean hands. Let it sit in the fridge or out for a little while to let the flavors absorb, and the kale soften slightly.

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I made a lot of adjustments to the  Spicy Thai Vegetable Wraps, RFRW pg. 143. I cut the oil in half for the chopped raw cashew mixture, which worked just fine. I used green instead of savoy cabbage, and for the almond butter sauce, I halved the recipe, and had more than enough sauce to coat it completely. I also used a combination of lemon and lime juice, and instead of a red chile,  a little cayenne and red pepper flakes. My bean sprouts went bad, so sadly they were also left out. Also, I ran out of basil, so I just used a little more cilantro and mint. I didn’t bother at all with the tamarind dipping sauce, since they were plenty tasty on their own. So I ended up with…

Thai Wraps

1/2 c. raw cashews, chopped
1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
couple pinches of sea salt

1/2 green cabbage, shredded

2 tbsp. maple syrup
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbps. lime juice
2″ piece of ginger, chopped
pinch of cayenne
pinch of red pepper flakes
3/4 tbsp. braggs
1/2 c. almond butter

1 bunch of collard greens, stems removed and cut down the middle into two halves
2 small carrrots, cut into matchsticks
1 ripe mango, cut into thin strips
large handful of cilantro, finely chopped
large handful of mint, finely chopped

raw cashews, sesame oil, sea salt, mixed in a small bowl

maple syrup, lemon juice, chopped ginger, cayenne, crushed red pepper flakes, braggs, and almond butter blended in blender and tossed into green cabbage

ready to assemble

take the stem out of the collard leaf and use half for each wrap

fill and roll

I ended up with 10 beautiful wraps. 12 if you don't have any halves you don't like.

Results:

The leaves were really sturdy and thus, made these keep really well. So we were able to eat these delicious and fresh tasting wraps for days. The flavors complemented each other well, all the different textures were nice together, and provided a lot of crunch. Once they were all assembled, I thought they would’ve looked like pretty little Thai enchiladas if I had drizzled them with some tamarind dipping sauce, but I was already ready to be out of the kitchen and eating at that point, so I didn’t bother! ; )

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