How To Make Roti bread

Posted on February 17, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

I was having a huge craving for roti bread and channa masala the other day, but didn’t feel like spending any money, so I took a stab at making it at home. I added some collard greens to the channa masala, and it came out okay, but I’ll need to work on that a bit before I post you any recipes. My roti bread, however, came out great!

Traditionally roti is made with Atta, a stone ground durum whole wheat flour, but here I used white whole wheat flour with good results. I also decided to use some unrefined coconut oil as an experiment. I figured, if it left a coconuty flavor, it would be a nice complement to the food, but it actually didn’t, so you can use what you like. I used this recipe as my guide.

Roti Bread (non-traditional)

2 c. white whole wheat flour
3/4 c. filtered water
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
1 tbsp. unrefined coconut oil

Directions:

1. Put ingredients into a large bowl, or bowl of a stand up mixer. Mix to combine ingredients. (I used the paddle attachment of my stand up mixer.)

2. Knead for about 10 minutes. (I switched to the dough hook for my mixer.)

3. Cut into 12 pieces and shape into dough balls. Use the palms of your hands to shape into a disc and then roll out into thin circles. (I no longer have a rolling pin, so I used the sides of my water bottle.

4. Preheat an ungreased skillet (or griddle) to medium/medium high heat. (I started at med-high, and then reduced to just above medium.)

5. Place disc(s) onto skillet and let cook for about a minute, depending on thickness. It’s kind of like pancakes, you’ll see the edges change color when it’s ready to turn. Turn to the other side to cook through, about another minute.

Ingredients in

Mix with paddle attachment.

Dough after kneading with dough hook, about 7-10 minutes.

Divided into 12 pieces.

Flattened out with palm prior to rolling.

Done!

Blissful Bites’ Un-Tuna Salad over lightly dressed kale

Posted on February 12, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

I had been meaning to try out Blissful Bites‘ UnTuna Salad for quite some time now, and had bought the ingredients last week before I left for a friend’s wedding in Vegas. I chose this light, healthy dinner as the first one back purposefully, making it extra healthy by serving it over a bed of lightly dressed kale. The dressing is just a tahini based something I threw together in the small bowl of my food processor, but I’ll include the approximate recipe below.

For the Blissful Un-Tuna, I made a few adjustments. I went ahead and started by pulsing the chickpeas to a slight mash in the food processor, since it was being used regardless. I then used the fine grater for both the carrots (I used 2) and the celery (I used 1.5 stalks). I subbed dijon for yellow mustard, as I always do (I don’t really care about yellow). Surprisingly, I couldn’t find just plain kelp powder in the downtown Seattle Whole Foods, so I used Bragg’s Kelp seasoning. It came out really delicious! Even without having pure kelp powder it was plenty tuna-ish for me, and besides, we just adore chickpeas, so I knew this would be a win.

Garlic Lemon Tahini Dressing
makes about 1/2 – 2/3 cup

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 c. tahini
1/3 c. water, plus more to desired consistency
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp. brown rice syrup, or other sweetener to taste, optional
cayenne pepper, optional
Bragg’s kelp seasoning (or salt & pepper), to taste

Directions:

Mince garlic in the small bowl of a food processor. Add all other ingredients and blend until smooth. Taste for seasonings and consistency.

* I only used half of this dressing for one large bunch of kale, hence the lightly dressed!!

And here is a picture of the kittens being sleepy, just for good measure. Check out the belly on Ganon! (Bottom left.)

365 Meatless Meatballs

Posted on January 31, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

I came home from work exhausted on Tuesday, and realized that before I got to relax, we still needed to go to Target and Whole Foods. :p We were at that point where we really HAD to get groceries, no more procrastinating was allowed. I also realized that the last thing I wanted to do when we got home was cook, so I commissioned Thomas to make me some spaghetti and meatballs while I got a nice hot shower in. (I think I got inspired seeing the ad for Gardein’s new meatballs.)

I usually make my own out of TVP, and WF didn’t seem to have Gardein’s new product, so we decided to try the 365 brand. He baked them in the oven on a prepared cookie sheet according to package directions, combined them with 365 basil pasta sauce, and served it over whole wheat spaghetti.

They were really good. Well seasoned, nice texture, absorbed some of the sauce. Definitely glad we picked these up! We’ll have to try their other meat analogs sometime.

Leftovers made an excellent lunch the next day too!

Highline – Seattle, WA

Posted on January 27, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

I’ve been super beat lately adjusting to the new job wake up time. Getting up at the time I got used to going to bed for the last 3 months, has been a bit rough, so I apologize for the little hiatus of slacking here at the blog. Also, because Highline is one of our favorite places in Seattle so far, I wanted to make sure to give you a proper review, so I took my time writing it over the course of a few visits.

I say proper review, because I’m the type of person that reads a lot of reviews, and I found some of the reviews I read about Highline before going to be highly inaccurate. So I will start by setting the record straight!

Debunking the Highline myths created by happycow and yelp reviewers…

The first thing you need to know about Highline is that it is a BAR. A pub. A lounge. A venue. They also serve food, but that doesn’t automatically mean you can bring your children in here. It is NOT a family restaurant, that’s why it says NO MINORS on the front door. IT IS A BAR.

The second thing you need to know is that Highine isn’t a dive bar contrary to what several reviewers seem to believe. Not to say that dive bars are bad in any way. I love dive bars, but bars with granite counter tops don’t qualify as dive bars in my book, maybe that’s just me.

The third thing I read and found untrue, was that it’s in a trashy neighborhood? Umm? It’s right on Broadway, in Capitol Hill. Do you think that’s a bad neighborhood, because I don’t. Yes, it’s directly upstairs from a store that sells lingerie and adult toys, but it’s actually a very nice store, with a thoughtful layout and a professional staff.

Things that are true about Highline?

They have delicious food, it’s all vegan, and most of it wouldn’t really be considered health food. Now, there are a few salads on the menu (which I have yet to try!), but what they do exquisitely well is bar food. For example, they have vegan fish and chips. Seriously. The above burrito is actually what brought us in for the 1st time. They had it as their daily special, and Thomas needed a burrito fix badly one afternoon, so we decided to go check it out.

I had the THE PELE wrap $8 / Maple teriyaki tempeh with pineapple, spinach, cabbage, red onions, miso-sriracha aioli, which as you can imagine was absolutely awesome.

We shared the pickle chips, which have become Thomas’ new favorite food. They come served with ranch dressing. They kick butt.

Here is the full bar as glimpsed over the shiny granite counter top. Highline doesn’t just pour icy cold beers, they also have a large list of house infused liquors and signature drinks. I’m a big fan of the ginger infused bourbon. In fact, that’s mostly what I drank all night on New Year’s when we came back for a special NYE edition CAKEAROKE (karaoke with vegan cake). Here is my New Year’s cupcake being presented to me by Joe the bartender.

Granite aside, it’s a pretty punk rock place, which we love. A lot of the staff is in, or tours with bands, and you’ll find lots and lots of ink, piercings and dreads on both the help and the customers. They also HAD a bad bathroom situation going, (but they would give you a key to the nicer bathroom in the hallway adjacent to the bar, if you asked!) but that has recently been remedied!

And this is not just a place for vegans either, pretty much everyone cool that we meet seems to love Highline, and like the food. Here’s their appetizer list…

I really need to try those sweet potato tater tots next! And here are their nachos…

They’re supposed to come with a nooch sauce too, but didn’t the day I ordered these. Didn’t matter, they were still super good.

Along with some pickle chips, we also split an order of SATAN FINGERS with buffalo sauce that were fantastic.

I highly recommend Highline if you’re in Seattle. We plan on taking all of our friends here when they visit. We have yet to be there for a band night, but they have all kinds of things go down here like all you can eat spaghetti and movie nights, trivia night, the aforementioned cakearokee, and an industrial night too.

Highline is located at 210 Broadway E, Seattle, Washington 98102. Open Mon – Fri: 3:00 pm – 2:00 am and they open extra early on the weekend for BRUNCH! Sat – Sun: 11:00 am – 2:00 am (206) 328-7837, highlinevolume@gmail.com, http://www.highlineseattle.com

January Raw Kickoff: Day 3 and a Raw Carob Peanut Butter Dip recipe

Posted on January 10, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

Well, as things sometimes go…

Day 3 of my raw didn’t really happen. We had leftovers of the carrot slaw for lunch (no breakfast, a more common occurrence than these nicely planned days I had accomplished) and ended the night with some delivery pizza.

We split an extra large roasted garlic, spinach and basil pizza sprinkled upon delivery with nooch (nutritional yeast) and crushed red peppers!

However, my raw carob powder did get delivered and I was able to put together a nearly raw carob peanut butter dip/sauce recipe to share with you! I decided to order raw carob powder instead of my usual raw cacao since caffeine just sends me into anxiety mode. I used a recipe from Raw Food as a guide. Her recipe called for tahini, and since my tahini was roasted anyway, I figured I may as well use some of the peanut butter for a nice chocolatey combo that I knew would go over well with Thomas.

You can easily make this completely raw with any raw seed or nut butter you can find. I don’t buy them because they’re so expensive, but you can make your own. If you want to make your own raw peanut butter (you can buy raw peanuts on amazon), or any other raw nut butter for that matter, just toss the raw nuts in a food processor or high speed blender, and blend until smooth. You may need to add a little oil. Google it.

[Nearly] Raw Carob Peanut Butter Dip

1/2 c. peanut butter (or preferred seed/nut butter)
7 tbsp. raw carob powder
2-3 tbsp. raw agave
1/2 c. of water, plus more to desired consistency (I ended up with about 2/3 c.)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a small, resealable jar. Adjust water to desired consistency.

It will thicken up in the fridge, so you may need to thin it out again. My inspiration recipe said keeps for 1 week in the fridge, so halve this if you don’t need so much.

This recipe made about a small jar of peanut butter’s worth. We’ve been using it on toast and rice cakes, you can add it to your smoothies or stir it into nut milk.

It also made a great dipping sauce for fresh cut apple slices, and would be amazing drizzled over banana slices, marshmallows, or on a [raw] sundae! I also happen to know it is perfectly decadent eaten off of a spoon!

January Raw Kickoff: Day 2 & a Raw Apple Cobbler recipe

Posted on January 9, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

Day 2 started out much like Day 1, with the buckwheat groat porridge, though this time I ran it in the Vitamix until it was warm.

For lunch I made us some celery soup. You can see most of the ingredients above! It was delicious and the avocado kept us full for a while.

Dinner came from Matthew Kinney’s Everyday Raw Express. I made the Curried Carrot Slaw, Endive, Pine Nuts, Golden Raisins.

Only minus the endive, because it is too expensive, with regular raisins, and with ALMONDS instead of cashews for the sauce because Thomas is allergic to cashews. (I do this all the time now as a straight substitute and have had no problems. I’m going to try to make some artisan almond cheese one of these days based off of a cashew recipe.) I served it on romaine leaves as incredibly fresh and tasty burritos. The pine nuts gave this the necessary filling ingredient. The sauce on this combined with the mint was just so flavorful.

For dessert, I made this apple cobbler, very similarly to the way I made the pear blackberry one the day previously.

Raw Apple Cobbler

2-3 apples, cut into bite-sized pieces
drizzle of raw agave
sprinkle of cinnamon
pinch of ground ginger

1/2 c. almonds
1/2 c. raisins
pinch of salt

1. Place apples in a 2-3 quart dish. Drizzle with lightly with agave and toss with spices until lightly coated.

2. For the topping, add almonds, raisins, and salt to the small bowl of a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Sprinkle on top of fruit.

January’s Raw Kickoff: Day 1 & Raw Pear Blackberry Cobbler recipe

Posted on January 3, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

Just like last year, I decided a great way to kick off the new year would be with a few days of raw food. It’s day 2 and I’m feeling great. It’s not a permanent lifestyle choice for me, but a great place to go back to whenever I need it. The holidays usually leave me feeling a little gunky, so I decided to do full raw for 3 days. I mostly used my Raw Food: A handy guide for every meal of the day book as a guide for the recipes for day one. (Except dessert, see below.) The nice thing about making meals like this is, it’s extremely easy to improvise and adapt the recipes. I have other raw books now, but this was the 1st one I ever purchased. It may come off as simplistic for some, but the servings are generous, and the recipes, though not extremely abundant, are easy and taste good.

Though I love eating this way, and there are certainly times when we eat high raw for month periods at a time, produce is expensive. That said, we’ll be going back to eating lots of cheap protein like grains, beans, and legumes after this. Speaking of finances, mine should be improving fairly soon though. I start my orientation for work in a week and a half on Monday, January 14th! Which is great because I really want to buy my ticket for this year’s VidaVeganCon in Portland before they sell out! Just look at the amazing list of speakers!!

Okay, okay, now onto the food…

I bought enough buckwheat groats to last us for about 4 breakfasts. These are cheap enough out of the bulk bins. I soak the amount we need overnight (or in this case for a few days, rinsing daily) and then combine it with apples, cinnamon, dates and a little water.

For lunch we had this delicious spiced carrot soup. A fairly modified version of Raw Food’s Holiday Season Carrot Soup. Orange juice, carrots, grind of sea salt, dates, figs, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and almonds. Even though I’m kind of over anything tasting too “holiday” right now, it was tasty. I ran it in the Vitamix until it was warm-hot.

For dinner, I added some baby kale to this carrot salad, which I had made before and loved. It also had broccoli, tomato, apple, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins, carrots, sunflower seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper.

We ate so much of this, and we even had a little leftover. (Which became my awesome lunch today!)

I made this Pear Blackberry Cobbler, based off of some of Ani Phyo’s ideas in her raw dessert book. Her formula seems to be about 2-3 fruits like peaches, pears, nectarines, apples with a little agave and maybe a spice and a crumble consisting of equal parts nuts/dried fruit with a bit of salt. I prefer the fruit cut smaller instead of sliced, and thought the salt was a little too much, so I cut it back for the cobbler I made tonight, but I’ll give you the recipe below with the adjustments I made!

It was just delicious. We ate all of it!

Pear Blackberry Cobbler

3 pears, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 small container of blackberries
drizzle of raw agave

1/2 c. pecans (you can use 1/3 c. I just happened to have 1/2 c., so I figured, why not?)
1/3 c. dates
pinch of salt

1. Combine pears and blackberries in a 2-3 quart dish. Drizzle with lightly with agave and toss until mixed.

2. For the topping, add pecans, dates and salt to the small bowl of a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Sprinkle on top of fruit.

Easy and so very delicious! Stay tuned for day 2 and another raw recipe.

Winter Holiday Wrap-up: Holiday Feasting & A kitten!

Posted on January 2, 2013 by cameraphonevegan

Thanksgiving Dinner 2012

My holiday cooking this year was a little atypical. Being that we spent Thanksgiving Day driving through Texas, eating seitan sandwiches from Austin’s Counter Culture (delicious!) in a gas station parking lot (above!), I went ahead and made us a nice spread a random day in December.

Starting in the top left you’ll see my Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts w/Apples & Onions, and some store bought cranberry sauce. Bottom row is my Perfect Pumpkin Pie, a tasty casserole from the Veganomicon, Carmelized Onion and Butternut Squash Roast with Chestnuts, and my perfected Cornbread recipe.

Hello, gorgeous. You can see all the wonderful casserole here up front. Butternut squash, white beans, and chestnuts combine with caramelized onions and breadcrumbs and sage to give you that taste of stuffing, with a bunch of extra goodness thrown in.

I’ve always read that it’s better to grind your own flax seed, but I felt just fine about buying it pre-ground and keeping it in the fridge in a glass jar. However, Thomas could only find the whole seed at Trader Joe’s.

No matter, I scooped out the amount I needed and put it in the vita-mix for a few seconds. Worked like a charm.

I was ecstatic about this cornbread using my new, super secret (not really) ingredient. And I updated my previous recipe accordingly. Just the perfect combination of salty and sweet, with a nice texture and no added oil.

Christmas Eve wasn’t all that far away from my impromptu meal, so some of these items were repurposed, including the cranberry sauce, and the very little that was left of the casserole and brussel sprouts.

But I also made some sweet potato mash and baked up a field roast celebration loaf with some onions and green beans. The field roast was incredible, and we enjoyed eating the leftover slices cold, right out of the fridge.

For the mash, I simply baked the potatoes during the prep and baking of my other dishes. (1.25 hours) Once cooked through I mashed them with a bit of butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt & pepper.

***

I hope you all had a safe and happy winter holiday season! It was a bit sad to be away from everyone we love this year, so I’m actually pretty glad it’s all over. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to travel home for one of the holidays. The bright side was between Christmas and the New Year, we added another member to our family.

This is Midna, our 16 week old sphynx kitten! She’s the sweetest little baby, and she is slowly but surely starting to put up with Ganon. He came on a little strong on day one, so she’s been hissing and growling at him a whole lot over the last week, but I was super excited last night when they managed to share a blanket together in peace. Today they were running all over the house playing.

Ganon’s only 2 months older, but he’s about 3 times the size of Midna right now, but she’s proven that she can hold her own! She is one of the sweetest kittens I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing mommy to.

Annapurna Cafe – Capitol Hill, Seattle

Posted on December 26, 2012 by cameraphonevegan

Had to tell you about a recent discovery in Capitol Hill. Not only is Annapurna close enough to us to walk to, but they have everything vegan clearly marked on the menu, and it was the best service we’ve had since I can remember. Not only is the food clearly marked vegan, but they know what it means. After ordering, the server inquired if we were vegan, and told us he’d hold the mint sauce, which has dairy.

(I’m going to go ahead and just apologize for the very poor pictures. Even though I have this amazing cameraphone now, this place is really dimly lit, and I didn’t want to keep drawing attention to us with multipe attempts at flash photography!)

We started with the vegetable pakoras (fried veggies battered in chickpea flour) which came with tamarind sauce and mango chutney.

Thomas had the Monk Stir-Fry Tofu and mixed vegetables stir-fried in Tibetan style with garlic and ginger sauce, served with brown rice $9.95. I snuck a little taste and the sauce was delicious.

I got the Saag Chana Fresh spinach cooked with Chick peas and freshly ground Indian spices $9.95. Even though I was incredibly full, I literally could not stop eating this until it was gone, save for some brown rice. Very nicely spiced.

We also got an order of roti bread, which served as a wonderful vehicle for the spiced sauces and chutney. Overall a wonderful meal, extremely attentive waitstaff, and a pleasant, cozy restaurant.

Annapurna is located in Capitol Hill at 1833 Broadway, Seattle WA 98122. 206-320-7770. Open 7-days a week. See website for hours. Happy hour is 3-6pm with $3.99 appetizers.

Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts with Apples and Onions

Posted on December 18, 2012 by cameraphonevegan

Now, I’ve made roasted brussel sprouts before, but I recently had some at Mohawk Bend in L.A. that left me wanting to experiment. They do theirs with maple syrup, apples, and almonds, but I decided to try apples and onions in a maple dijon glaze here. The dijon is pretty subtle, but not integral to the dish, so I’d say it’s safe to leave it out if you’re not into mustard.

Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts with Apples and Onions

2 lbs of brussel sprouts, ends trimmed, loose leaves removed, and cut in halves
olive oil
salt & pepper

1 large apple, chopped small
~1/2 large onion, chopped

3 tbsp. real maple syrup
1 scant tbsp. dijon mustard
1.5 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 450*F. Mist a large oven proof baking dish (preferably something heavy, like cast-iron) with olive oil and add prepared brussel sprouts. Mist with a little more olive oil and toss with a bit of fresh ground salt & pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring halfway, or every 10 minutes.

2. Mist a large skillet with olive oil, and heat to low-medium. Cook apples and onions until the onions are translucent, about 7-10 minutes.

3. Whisk together maple syrup, dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar and a little bit of salt & pepper.

4. Pull brussel sprouts out of the oven, and reduce heat to 375*F. Carefully mix in apples and onions, and drizzle with glaze. Return dish to oven to bake for and additional 10 minutes. Broil on high for 3-5 minutes until there are brussel leaves that look charred and crispy.

Unfortunately, the prep was not all smooth sailing…

I’m still getting to know my Seattle kitchen appliances, and it appears that I overloaded the garbage disposal with brussel sprout ends. Fortunately, Thomas came to my rescue…

In no time he had found the offending clogged pipe and cleared the problem. It was mostly brussel sprouts and some onion skins. Oops!

Here are the trouble makers all pretty and ready to head into the oven.

And here they are all nicely roasted and glazed!

Reheating was pretty much the same as the last part… 10 minutes at 375*F, and 5 minutes under the broiler on high to crisp them back up! Enjoy!!

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Category Archives: food pix

How To Make Roti bread

Blissful Bites’ Un-Tuna Salad over lightly dressed kale

365 Meatless Meatballs

Highline – Seattle, WA

January Raw Kickoff: Day 3 and a Raw Carob Peanut Butter Dip recipe

January Raw Kickoff: Day 2 & a Raw Apple Cobbler recipe

January’s Raw Kickoff: Day 1 & Raw Pear Blackberry Cobbler recipe

Winter Holiday Wrap-up: Holiday Feasting & A kitten!

Annapurna Cafe – Capitol Hill, Seattle

Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts with Apples and Onions

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