Homework #3

January 1, 2010 at 10:44 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged Bauman College, breakfast, cake, dessert, Mexican, my recipes, vegan

My third homework assignment for Bauman College was to come up with two recipes for breakfast and three recipes for dinner, including one with seaweed.

For some reason, I made one of the breakfast recipe incredibly complicated, with multiple components.  Luckily, most of them can be made the night before and you can throw it together for an easy breakfast in the morning.  This breakfast kept me full twice as long as my normal breakfasts.  If nothing else, try the avocado cream the next time you make Mexican – it’s ridiculously good!

Breakfast Fajita Bowls with Spanish Millet, Mango-Radish Salsa & Avocado Cream

1 cup pinto beans, soaked overnight
Spanish Millet
1 cup millet, soaked overnight
8 oz can tomato sauce plus water to equal two cups
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
Mango-Radish Salsa
1 bunch radishes (8-9 radishes), finely diced
1/2 large mango, peeled and finely diced
1 Tbs fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro, plus extra for garnish
Avocado Cream
1 cup cashews, soaked overnight
1/2 cup water
1 medium avocado
1 Tbs fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
Fajita Vegetables
1 Tbs high heat sunflower oil
1 medium onion, sliced
1 large bell pepper (green or red), sliced
1 medium zucchini. cut into matchsticks
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 paprika paprika
1 dash cayenne pepper
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

1. Drain pinto beans and place in a medium pot.  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours, checking for doneness after 1 hour.  Drain and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, drain the millet and place in a medium pot.  Pour tomato sauce into a 1-cup measure and add water to equal 1 cup.  Pour into pot with millet, then add another cup of water.  Add cumin, onion powder and garlic powder and stir to combine.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 10 minutes.  Stir in 1/4 tsp salt, taste, and adjust seasonings if necessary.
3. In a small bowl, combine the radishes, mango, lime juice, chili powder, 1/4 tsp salt and chopped cilantro.  Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.  Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Drain the cashews and place in a blender.  Add 1/2 cup water and blend until mostly smooth.  Add the avocado flesh, lime juice and 1/2 tsp salt and blend until completely smooth.  Thin with extra water if desired.  Pour into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
5. When all other components are ready, heat the sunflower oil in a large pan over medium high heat.  Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the bell pepper, zucchini, garlic and a pinch of salt and cook for 4 minutes.  Add the spices and continue to cook for 6 minutes, or until the vegetables are crisp-tender.  Add the pinto beans and black pepper and cook just to heat through.  Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
6. To serve. place some of the millet in a bowl and add some of the vegetable/bean mixture.  Top with salsa and avocado cream and garnish with extra cilantro.  Serve with hot sauce if desired.

Servings: 4

Amount Per Serving
Calories 767.94
Calories From Fat (35%) 270.96
% Daily Value
Total Fat 32.12g 49%
Saturated Fat 5.17g 26%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 865.43mg 36%
Potassium 1830.52mg 52%
Total Carbohydrates 99.92g 33%
Fiber 19.93g 80%
Sugar 14.08g
Protein 27.11g 54%

To go with my fajita bowls: spiced pumpkin seed milk.

Pumpkin Seed Milk

2 cups pumpkin seeds, soaked overnight
3 cups water
1/4 cup organic maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
pinch sea salt

1. Drain the pumpkin seeds and place in a blender.  Add 2 cups of the water and blend until very smooth.
2. Add the third cup of water and the remaining ingredients and blend until everything is well incorporated.  Pour the mixture into a nut milk bag over a pitcher and squeeze all of the liquid out.  Discard the solids or reserve for another use.
3. Refrigerate the milk until ready to drink.

Servings: 4

Amount Per Serving
Calories 148.66
Calories From Fat (35%) 52.29
% Daily Value
Total Fat 6.24g 10%
Saturated Fat 1.19g 6%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 260.04mg 11%
Potassium 300.83mg 9%
Total Carbohydrates 18.4g 6%
Fiber 0.19g <1%
Sugar 0.84g
Protein 5.95g 12%

The rest of my recipes turned out just okay, so I’m not sharing.  I’ll show you what they looked like though…

This was supposed to be napa cabbage rolls with dipping sauce, but I didn’t like how the rolls tasted, so it turned in to…

Butternut Squash Skillet with Rice, Beans & Almond-Miso Sauce.  Unfortunately,decent but not really worth repeating.

This is Gomasio Green Beans, my side dish with seaweed.  It’s good, but you don’t really need a recipe – buy or make some gomasio and toss it on cooked green beans.  Yum!

My third recipe is still a work in progress – a vegan, soy- and gluten-free cheesecake.  It’s been a really long time since I had real cheesecake, so I asked my coworkers to help evaluate.  The flavor was good, but the texture was too grainy, so I tried again.  The first one had a really nice persimmon sauce, and…

The second one got a simple strawberry sauce.  This one had a better texture but could still use some work.  If I get it perfect I will surely share it with everyone!

Now I will regale you with pictures a classmate took during the third section of classes.

For the Grains, Legumes, Nuts & Seeds class I worked on this Pecan Loaf with Creole Glaze, which we paired with mashed cauliflower.  Tasted better than it looked!

We also enjoyed Hearty Greens in Cashew Curry Sauce.

On Sea Vegetables day we started with Sea Vegetable Caviar, which was actually very good, although I couldn’t compare it with “real” caviar.  Check out the adorable lemon flower.

Ruby Slaw with Sea Palm, a lot better than it sounds 🙂

Sesame Yams with Arame

Italian Bean Soup with Wild Nori

And for dessert, Apple-Pomegranate Kanten with Cashew Cream.

We didn’t get many pictures from the Alternative Ingredients class for some reason, but these are the gluten- and sugar-free Banana-Nut Blueberry Muffins I worked on.

This is a very pretty deconstructed Vegan Caesar Salad.

Our Breakfast class was heavy on eggs, but I got to try this Homemade Granola with Fresh Almond Milk.

And Spiced Amaranth Porridge with Coconut Blueberry Topping.  Amaranth has become one of my new favorite things since then.

Vegetable Proteins class was awesome!  It was one of only a few classes where I could taste everything since everything was vegan.  This Asian Salad with Ginger Marinated Tofu and Almond-Sesame Dressing was topped by some of the tastiest baked tofu I’ve ever had.

A classmate garnished this African-Style Quinoa Stew with pretty leaves made from leftover leeks.

Cranberry Braised Tempeh

High-Protein Lentil and Millet Burgers with Cheesy Cashew Sauce

I was a little more at a loss for dinner after the Fish and Chicken classes.  While my classmates practiced their filleting skills I made Lemon-Scented Quinoa with Oyster Mushrooms and Snowpeas.

To help feed the other vegetarians (including our kitchen manager), I made an Asian-inspired tempeh salad using what I could find in the fridge.  It was really tasty for something thrown together at the last minute.

During Chicken class, I got to improv.  I made a salad which was good but nothing crazy impressive.  I put most of my effort into this dish, Roasted Sweet Potato Rounds with Chard, Lentil Puree and Frizzled Leeks.  That’s what I’m calling it at least.  The lentil puree was silky smooth (thank you Vita-Mix), flavored with worcestershire and champagne vinegar among other things.  The presentation was a little sloppy because I was rushing to finish on time, but the flavors really came through.

And finally, desserts.  I didn’t work on as many desserts as everyone else because many of them included eggs, but I did work on this Pumpkin Tart with Coconut Cream.

And this is Raw Fall  Fruit Cobbler with Cranberry Coulis.  One of the girls that was in my group that day is pretty wild with presentation (in a good way), so we let her do her thing and just provided persimmon stars.

I hope everyone had Happy Holidays and a great New Year’s Eve.  I’m a lucky duck – I get about two weeks off of both work and school, so I’m home now relaxing but starting to take care of business again.  I’m working on some projects for school, organizing the pantry (pictures to come if it goes well), and continuing to relax as much as possible (meaning not thinking about the mess of work that awaits me when I return to the office).

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