Hi foodie friends! It has been awhile since I last posted, but rest assured that I still have a big appetite and I am eating, drinking and enjoying vegan life.  One reason I haven’t been posting is because I haven’t been adventuring past my usual repertoire of yummy dishes. Some of these are return favorites from recent cooking adventures. They include: Vegan Fusion’s Easy as Pie Stir Fry, Quinoa Kitchari, and raw dishes Sprouted Wild Rice Salad and Live Un-Stir Fry (Check my raw blog entries for this recipe). Tabouli dishes of all sorts appear on my dinner menu often as well as Vegan Yum Yum’s Dal Makhni, Post Punk Kitchen’s Chickpea and Spinach Curry, and 101 Cookbooks’ Coconut Red Lentil Curry Soup. I also make my own style of Puttanesca pasta made with lots and lots of veggies that shows up often on my table.

So in this post, I would like to share a daily de-lish with you… my favorite almond mylk. You see I used to be a cup a day coffee with milk kind of drinker. Today, I am happy to say that I am drinking a hot grain beverage with homemade almond mylk. It has been a kind of metamorphosis…  At first I started drinking boxed almond milk in my coffee each morning… then adding Vitamix to my kitchen appliance crew, I started making my own almond milk. Then finally, I gave up the coffee for a healthier grain brew after a friends recommendation.

The brew I am drinking is Inka. It is made of roasted barley and rye. My friends and my husband grew up drinking it in Poland. I love the taste and highly recommend drinking it with a little almond mylk. I usually use about two heaping teaspoons to a cup of boiling hot water. The measure of Inka to water you will have to experiment with as it depends how strong you like your brew.

I like my mylk creamy, so for this reason I add at least a partial amount of coconut water/juice to the recipe. This also adds nutritional value as coconut water/juice is high in high in potassium and other electrolytes. For the creamiest mylk using my recipe leave out the water and substitute coconut water/juice. When I can’t get water/juice  from a coconut, I use Amy & Brian Coconut Juice. This is 100% juice with no added sweeteners or preservatives. It is readily available in Hawaii even by the case if you want to save money.

Crucial to my recipe is the vanilla bean. What can I say, it adds an abundance of flavor and aroma. Use the whole bean in the amount suggested… you will smell and taste the difference.

Lastly, don’t forget to soak the almonds. Most nights I am sleepy before going to bed… and because of this there have been times when I forgot to soak the almonds. If I’m under the covers and remember to soak the almonds… I still don’t soak them because I’m too lazy to get out of bed. More times than not though, I do soak the almonds over night and it makes a big difference the next day. Soaking the nuts allows for all of the following:

• Enzyme inhibitors release which allows sprouting to begin.
• The amount of vitamins your body can absorb increases.
• Gluten breaks down so digestion is much easier.
• Phytic acid, which inhibits the absorption of vital minerals, is reduced.

I also think that the nuts get softer after soaking and allow the mylk to become even creamier after blending. So soak those nuts and your enjoy my favorite almond mylk!

VEGAN SPROUT’s FAVORITE ALMOND MYLK

1/2 cup of almonds (preferably soaked overnight)

1/2 cup filtered water
1/2 cup coconut water/juice (for creamier consistency add more coconut water/juice and less water)
1/4 of one vanilla bean

Blend for at least 30 seconds in high speed blender. Drain through a nut mylk bag and… drink!

Having lived in New York City for nearly 20 years, I am an avid reader of The New York Times. Even as a child, I was a fan. My father would special order it at a local store and go pick it up early Sunday Morning. Upon returning home with the massive paper which was twice the size of our local Sunday paper, we would sit on the living room floor with the morning sun streaming through the windows as we idled over the many sections for hours. Reading The Times online these days and loving anything about cooking, I’ve discovered the Dining & Wine section. Recently during the month of Passover and Easter, I came across the  Olive Oil Matzo Recipe by Mark Bittman. I love the way The Times provides both an article about a recipe, the recipe itself and many times a video. (Here are the links for the  article and video formats.)

I want to call this bread rather than matzo because it is so tasty and so unlike the plain matzo (also spelled matza, matzoh,  matsah, or matze) that I’ve had in the past.  Browning ever so nicely with big air pockets, it reminds me of an Indian-type bread but without the elasticity from yeast.  Bittman refers to it in his article as “Sardinian flatbread known as carta musica — sheet music, because it is nearly impossibly thin”. In my home, we ate this with a Carrot & Tahini Soup. The flatbread works well with soup as it is easy to prepare and can be mixed together at the last moment before sitting down at the table, baked and served hot right alongside your soup.

Try it — you’ll like it! I know I’ll be making it again very soon!

We have a huge responsibility… and we will need to work together. It’s time to wake up and make both local and global environmental issues a priority. Let’s make the earth a beautiful place that the next generation will want to celebrate and enjoy!

Check out the following for more information:

• EARTH DAY ORGANIZATION
• EARTH DAYS: (THE) AMERICAN EXPERIENCE from PBS.ORG

Hey foodies… this has everything to do with what we eat… at the rate that the population is growing or should I say exploding … the needs of a meat-based diet are compounding the damage to our environment. Let’s start thinking of “how to use food to shape the world better.”

Hello fellow foodies! I’ve been away for awhile and coming back to my blog is like walking into my kitchen with all my favorite ingredients waiting for  to be sliced, diced and measured… having oodles of time to idle over recipes and every utensil, dish and baking pan clean. Ahhh…..

Well, my search for deliciousness was not all in vain. I mustered the courage to try another bunch of sprouted garbanzos and am happy to report that my hummus came out pretty good. It even left my husband scraping the bottom of the bowl… and you know what that means if you’re following my blog. The recipe was Spinach and Pine Nut Hummus with Olives from Renée Loux Underkoffler’s book: Living Cuisine. I’m still undecided about wether to buy this book. While it has a ton of detailed information about raw food cooking, I haven’t had too much success with many of the recipes. I love her book, The Balanced Plate, on the other hand and would consider adding it to my home collection. Luckily my local library has two copies so I keep borrowing one of them. All Renée’s books are so very comprehensive with an abundance of research and information. In the The Balanced Plate she includes information on organics, food types, green living and lots lots more!

Also, in the way of deliciousness, my wild rice sprouts came out fabulous! The photo above shows the Sprouted Wild Rice Salad from Eating Raw — a tasty salad that will definitely be on my table again and again and a good dish to introduce raw to regular foodies.

I also made the Live Garden Bugers from this book, but the Garlic Aioli Sauce which the book suggests to accompany the burgers was soooo good… that I can’t imagine eating the burgers without it. In fact, I think this sauce could liven up any garden burger and I highly recommend it. It really was the unexpected star of the entire meal. I even spread it on some Living Rye Bread another Eating Raw recipe. My “bread” came out more like a cracker because I spread it too thin on the Paraflexx sheet but with a little Garlic Aioli — it was divine!

Try it out for yourself! Be adventurous… make your own homemade burgers and almond milk. I’ll bet you can not stop dipping your finger in the Garlic Aioli before trying it on the burger!

RAW GARLIC AIOLI
1 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Almond Milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic, minced

1. Add pine nuts and olive oil to a blender and blend on medium speed for 30 seconds. Pour n Almond Milk while blending.
2. Add salt and garlic, and blend for at least 20 more seconds or until a creamy consistency is reached. You might need to stop and scrape down the sides.

Printable Recipe

Wondering what these two photos have to do with each other? Well, read on…

It seems for the past couple of  weeks, I’ve been cooking up  a storm with not too many good results. I’m a little apprehensive to share this info as most foodie bloggers are not writing about their flops. It’s not that I’m trying to set a new trend here… I’m just looking for sympathy. It was a tough week in the kitchen. Here’s a short list of some of the things that I tried:

Nearly Raw Ginger-Curried Butternut Soup (served warm)
Raw Corn Chowder (served warm)
Live Mu Shu Vegetables with Live Thai Red Curry Sauce
Raw Macadamia-Fudge Brownies
Raw Portobello Mushroom and Spinach Quiche
Blue-Green Smoothie (made with Blue Green Algae)
Spinach and Pine Nut Hummus with Olives (made with sprouted garbanzos)

All of these dishes fell short of deliciousness in my opinion.  In most cases, I followed the recipes closely and did not make any ingredient substitutions. I don’t fault the recipes, rather little maneuvers on my part that may have set the dish awry and in some cases like the smoothie, brownie, chowder and quiche.. though the final product came out just fine… the texture or taste just wasn’t my favorite — nor my husbands. I can always tell when he really likes a recipe as there is a lot of noise at the bottom of the plate as he tries to scrape off every delicious drop. Not much scraping going on with any of these dishes, although because we had no other sweets in the house — he did manage the brownies alright.

Ok – so let me bore you with some of the minor details of what may have gone wrong…

In the case of the hummus, I never made it past sprouting the garbanzos. Truly, sprouting is a new new thing to me and I need to learn a little bit more and maybe get some containers to aid the process. The book I was using said that the garbanzos needed 3-4 days to sprout after an 8-12 hour soak. Well by day 2 of sprouting, though the garbanzos had sprouted nicely, the stench from them was horrible! I tried rinsing and draining throughout the day but decided to throw them in the compost later as the smell was overwhelmingly bad.

Lesson? Read up on sprouting. Though it is good to keep sprouts out of the sun, maybe covering them with a towel does not allow enough airflow to prevent gases from overwhelming the kitchen. Be sure to rinse and drain on day 1 after soaking. Do this every 12 hours — don’t miss a cycle!

In the case of the Mu Shu… a fizzle… I was so anxious to try this dish that I used a mango in the sauce that may have been a little too under ripe. This left the sauce tasting like it was lacking something… probably the sweetness from the mango.

Lesson? Be patient. Wait until you have all the right ingredients. Fruits are tastier when they are ripe… and they will the dishes you put them in tastier.

As for the Butternut soup, I love how the recipe begins with steaming the squash and then adds the rest of the main ingredients (onion, garlic, ginger, chili pepper and apple) to the hot water leftover in the pot after steaming. In this way, the smaller ingredients lightly stew, nothing gets overcooked, less enzymes are destroyed and hopefully more nutrition is preserved… oh- and it simplifies the whole soup making process. Spice-wise however, the entire pot came out waaaay too spicy… and I like a little spicy. Was it the chopped chili pepper, the 4 tablespoons of minced ginger or the teaspoon of fresh black pepper? I’d have to re-make the soup to be able to figure this one out. My bet is on the black pepper, believe it or not.

Lesson? Taste as you go… especially if it calls for spices that create heat or if it is not a tried and true recipe and you have all the proportions figured out for your own tastes.

Which brings me back to the photos… you see I’m feeling a whole lot better having divulged my flounderings in the kitchen to you. Both photos illustrate two main ingredients (red lentils & maca powder ) of two recipes that I tried that did come out DELICIOUS! They were posted by bloggers both of whom have wonderful web sites filled with amazing recipes. Check them out and see the recipe for a photo of the final dish… but I’m warning you now… you will be set into a trance just like me and have to try the recipe right away.

The first recipe is for Coconut Red Lentil Soup from 101 Cookbooks. This is one of those soups I can see making again and again and again. If I were stuck on a deserted island and could make one dish… I would highly consider this one to be THE dish. DELICIOUS!

The second recipe is Maca Maca Bars from Bittersweet. These bars surprised me, as I’m not a huge fan of maca but I loved the texture which is like a nice chewy peanutbutter cookie… and combined with coconut oil and mac nuts makes for DELICIOUS!

Just a few notes on ingredients. I substituted vegetable oil for butter in the Coconut Red Lentil Soup to make it vegan and Vanilla Soy and Raw Cider Vinegar for the Coconut Kefir in the Maca Maca Bars.

As for me I’m back trying new things in the kitchen looking for deliciousness. Here’s a short list of what I’m working on now:

Live Garden Burgers dehydrating
Almond butter cookies dehydrating
Orange-Cranberry-Almond Granola dehydrating
Wild Rice – sprouting for Wild Rice Salad
Rye Berries – sprouting for Living Rye Bread
Almonds – soaking for Raw Garlic Aioli Sauce (for burgers)

Bon Appetite everyone! Enjoy your fizzles, flops and flounderings in the kitchen!