CSA | Vegan Homemade

Posts Tagged CSA

Summer CSA’s

August 9, 2011 at 10:07 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged black beans, blackberries, cake, CSA, dumplings, Eating Well, fajitas, Food, Joy of Vegan Baking, oranges, pasta salad, pesto, root vegetables, salad, stew, tea, vegan

I stopped taking pictures of my CSA deliveries for a while there. I like winter squash, greens and citrus plenty, but after a while they’re not that exciting. When summer produce starting arriving my interest was renewed! Before I get to that, here are a few dishes that used up the last of my winter and spring produce.

Fajita-style poblanos, fennel and mushrooms over polenta cakes with lettuce, tangerine salsa, beans and a bit of Daiya.

I had some sweet potatoes sitting around and decided to try to make a sweet potato based bbq sauce. It turned out a little grainy but tasted good enough on tempeh. In the back is a brussels sprout and corn hash.

To use up some root veggies, I made this Root Vegetable Stew with Herbed Dumplings from Eating Well.

I used Tofurkey Italian Sausage and subbed egg substitute in the dumplings. This was a very hearty and tasty dish. You cook the dumplings right on top of the stew! Some of my root veggies were beets, which turned the whole thing red and a little sweet. Next time I would probably stick with neutral colored roots.

Black bean and sweet potato hash with cumin, coriander and orange; steamed broccoli on the side.

6-9-11 CSA - corn, lettuce, peppermint, carots and radishes

cherries, cantaloupe, tomatoes

This orzo salad was for Vegan Happy Hour. I caramelized shallots then reduced some balsamic vinegar in the same pan, and blended the mixture with mayo and seasonings. The orzo and dressing was tossed with diced tomato, raw corn and fresh basil.

This isn’t CSA related, but these blackberries came from my backyard! We had some friends over on a Saturday and I had a bowl of freshly picked berries, so I made the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Joy of Vegan Baking into a cake, subbing berries for the chocolate. I added some cinnamon, which was a great compliment to the banana and berries. This was a perfect snack cake – moist but not dense, sweet but not too sweet.

6-16-11 CSA - bok choy, avocado, lettuce, cilantro

melon, strawberries, carrots, gypsy peppers, tomatoes

Peppermint tea! I’m not a huge fan of mint in food, so I boiled a pot of water then seeped a whole bunch of mint. Strained, chilled and served cold with stevia and lemon, it was a great treat.

After my last CSA delivery included basil, I was wondering what I could use to make an interesting pesto other than nuts. Lucky for me, that very same day Gena of Choosing Raw posted a recipe for hemp pesto. Perfect! I dont’ love hemp seeds as is, so I’m always looking for different ways to incorporate them into my diet. I used only one tablespoon of oil, and mixed the pesto with some shirataki noodles. In the back are some green beans cooked with coconut oil, onion, lemon and fresh dill. I really liked the pesto, and had the leftovers on toast with arugula and sliced tomato.

Lastly, one of my favorite ways to use up random veggies, the hot dog salad. This salad included lettuce, tomato, gypsy peppers, radishes, carrot, cilantro, sliced veggie dogs and Cesar Chavez Dressing from Appetite for Reduction. What is most important about this picture is that I finally figured out how to take a good picture of a giant salad! Normally I just pile stuff in the salad bowl while I chop it up. For this picture, I kept a bit of each topping off to the side then sprinkled them on top at the end so that you can see all the pretty colors! Obvious to some, maybe, but I was pretty proud of this accomplishment.

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Appetite For Reduction – Review & Giveaway

March 6, 2011 at 10:06 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged Appetite For Reduction, black beans, broccoli, butternut squash, cabbage, chickpeas, collard greens, cornbread, CSA, curry, Food, giveaway, gravy, pasta, rice, romanesco, salad, soup, stew, sushi, sweet potatoes, tempeh, tofu, vegan, zucchini

When I first heard about Appetite For Reduction, Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s latest cookbook, I knew it would be right up my alley. The recipes are similar to how I usually cook – whole foods, high flavor, low fat and calories. I bought the book a few weeks before Christmas and having been cooking from it since. Most of the recipes I’ve chosen so far have been based on what has been in my CSA deliveries, and there are a lot more recipes I look forward to trying.

Broiled Blackened Tofu. You just coat the tofu with the spice mix and broil it. Simple and tasty!

Butternut Coconut Rice. Mixing in mashed butternut squash is a smart way to make rice yummy and coconutty without adding a lot of fat. The only thing I would change with this recipe is to dice the shallot instead of slicing it, because the long slices were kind of weird compared to the texture of the rest of the dish.

Pineapple Collards. This maybe doesn’t look too appealing because my ginger was stringy, but the flavor is great. I just wish I had used more collards, because the pineapple/garlic/ginger combo was a little overpowering. Plus, I wanted to eat more of it.

All packed up to take for lunch.

Curried Cabbage & Peas, served with quinoa. The texture on these veggies was great – they were cooked enough to be tender, but still have a bite to them. The curry flavor isn’t incredibly complex, but the dish comes together really quickly, so I’m not complaining!

Not from AFR – I ate this Romanesco Carrot Salad with the curried cabbage. The recipe was in my CSA’s newsletter, and it was a nice way to use the romanesco.

Irish Stew with Potatoes & Seitan. This was a bust for me, but not due to the recipe. I used the steamed white seitan from Viva Vegan, and even after being sauteed the seitan was squishy like raw dough, and really unpleasant to eat. I’ve heard about other people having trouble with the seitan recipe, and also others who have had success, so perhaps it was just me. I picked all the seitan out, and the stew was pretty good.

Tempeh Helper. This is one I was really excited about. The recipe is posted here, on The PPK blog. This is super good! It tastes like junk food from a box, but isn’t junky at all. I was skeptical about the technique – you cook the pasta and other ingredients in a pan with a smaller amount of water than normal – but it worked out well. The pasta came out al dente, and the water cooked off without the dish getting dry. Next time I want to crumble the tempeh more finely so it’s spread throughout the dish.

The Gravy Bowl, slightly modified. I know how to put together a “bowl” on my own, but the suggestions in the three-page bowl section are good when you’re looking for something easy to throw together. Brown rice, baked tofu, steamed kale and collards and silky chickpea gravy. The gravy is not as flavor-intensive as some gravies, but for a gravy made with 1 teaspoon of oil it’s darned good.

Sushi Roll Edamame Salad. I’m no stranger to the sushi salad. I had tried this salad previously at a potluck, so I knew how good it was, which is why I was surprised that mine didn’t taste as good. I think I put too much green onion in the dressing (maybe my onions were particularly strong), and then added more as garnish, and the onion overpowered the whole thing. Less green onion next time, and it will be great.

Orange-Scented Broccoli, which I served alongside the sushi salad. This one was not my favorite; it tasted like ginger, garlic, broccoli and orange separately, as opposed to coming together as one big flavor. It was more cohesive as leftovers the next day, after the flavors had a chance to meld. Still, next time I would probably just steam the broccoli.

Morrocan Chickpeas & Zucchini served with Caulipots. I used some early-season, tender zucchini in this dish. The flavor in this soup is fantastic. It’s really easy to make, and turns out with a really wonderful spiciness throughout. The caulipots (mashed potatoes made partly with cauliflower) were a nice, creamy counterpart. I looked forward to eating these leftovers each day.

Butternut-Apple Soup and Fresh Corn & Scallion Cornbread. Sadly, this soup was another dud for me. It’s not a bad recipe by any means, just a matter of taste. I think I’m learning that I just don’t like apples in soup. The cornbread was nice dipped in the soup, and the whole corn kernels made for good texture.

Lastly for today, Yam & Black Bean Soup with Orange & Cilantro. I wasn’t expecting anything amazing from this recipe, so I was pleasantly surprised that it tastes amazing! The simple ingredients combine to make one wonderfully tasty soup. The two serrano peppers really turn up the heat, and the orange juice keeps it fresh. I baked some corn tortilla chips for dipping.

Considering how much I’ve enjoyed the recipes I’ve made so far, this might be the first cookbook that I end up making almost every recipe from.

Luckily for you guys, my mom is an excellent present-buyer. She also knew that I would love AFR, and bought me a copy for Christmas, which I am now passing on to one of you! And, I got the book signed when I had the pleasure of attending a cooking demo that Isa did a few weeks ago. She made the Thai Roasted Root Vegetable Curry and Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits, both of which I now want to make myself.

To enter to win this copy of Appetite For Reduction, leave a comment on this post with a healthy cooking tip. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, just any tip for cooking healthy vegan food. The contest will be open until midnight PST this Wednesday, March 9, and I’ll pick a comment at random. Please be sure to include your e-mail address (unless I’m able to find it by following a link to your blog). I’ll be back on Thursday to announce the winner and show you a few more recipes I’ve made from AFR. Good luck!

PS – I should mention that this is open to residents of the US and Canada only. Sorry, everyone else! If shipping was less costly, I would love to send it around the world!

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Salads of the Millennium

January 25, 2011 at 10:44 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged CSA, Food, Millennium Cookbook, salad, vegan

Wowzers, it’s been a long time! Turns out blogging is one of those things for me that, the longer I go without doing it, the harder it is to jump back in. So, here we go!

First, here is a CSA delivery I received in early December.

lettuce, spinach, arugula, bok choy, leeks & romanesco

carrots, apples, butternut squash, oranges, pears & a red onion

I’ve had The MIllennium Cookbook for years, but never cooked out of it because I was under the impression that all of the recipes would be too time consuming. I’ve seen other bloggers do it though, especially Cooking The Vegan Books, so I gave it a shot. The greens in my CSA delivery were so salad worthy, and I figured that salads were a good place to start.

This beauty is Bitter Greens, Figs, Butternut Squash, and Beets with Curried Almond Dressing, a great example of a composed salad. It wasn’t my favorite flavor-wise, but it was certainly fun to put together. Look at those figs! I never would’ve thought to present figs like that on my own. The squash was a little undercooked for my taste, so next time I would roast it at a higher temperature instead of baking at 350 like the recipe calls for. I looooved the dressing, and it’s low fat/low cal to boot, but when used on the bitter greens it was kind of like bitter on bitter. I think the dressing would be nicer on mild greens like spinach or butter lettuce, with some sweet components to round out the flavor. I had some of the leftovers with dried cranberries instead of the figs, which was also a nice option for when figs aren’t in season.

I had these cute little roasted romanescos on the side.

The second salad I tried was the incredible Millennium Warm Spinach Salad. The combination of red onion, mushrooms, smoked tofu and spinach in the warm balsamic vinaigrette was mouth-watering. The recipe says it serves six, but I could have eaten the entire pan of it! It took some extreme self-control to make it last for four meals. Next time I would double the amount of spinach to extend the recipe a little, and sop of some of the extra dressing in the pan, which turned out to be really good on a baked potato. This salad is guest worthy, for sure. Note to self: Make this for guests!

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VeganMoFo: The Dregs of My Fridge

November 30, 2010 at 10:51 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged cabbage, casserole, CSA, Food, my recipes, sweet potatoes, tempeh, vegan, VeganMoFo

And so we come to the end of VeganMoFo 2010! I didn’t meet my goal of blogging every weekday, but I did write make-up posts on the weekends when I missed, so I am still declaring my goal met. I’ve really enjoyed reading lots of the other MoFo posts. Sadly, I barely had enough time to keep up with the blogs that I already read, and I didn’t have much time to check out new blogs. I’ll be reading through all the other blogs now that things are slowing down.

My themed weeks were really fun – Other Bloggers’ Recipes Week, Vegetarian Times Week, and Flavor Bible Week. I don’t cook from recipes as often as I like, nor do I force myself to work with ingredients I’m not used to, so it really took me outside my comfort zone. The unfortunate side effect was that I mostly ignored my CSA deliveries in November, letting the fruits and veggies wither away. Here are the contents of the latest box.

napa cabbage, broccolini, kohlrabi, lettuce and spinach

pears, cranberries, carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, radishes, beets and radicchio

So, while MoFo was fun, I’m looking forward to going back to using my CSA deliveries well, going to the farmer’s market, and bringing my grocery budget back into a normal range. Tonight I used some of the sad vegetables to make dinner.

While it doesn’t photograph well, this casserole has everything I want in a one-dish dinner: protein, green veggies, complex carbs, healthy fats, creamy and crunchy textures, and a good calorie count. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but as I kept eating the flavors totally grew on me. This casserole may not be for you if you don’t like cabbage, tempeh and sweet potatoes because, well, that’s what it’s made from!

Creamy Cabbage & Tempeh Casserole with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

1 1/4 cups unsweetened non-dairy milk
2 Tbs cashew butter
1 Tbs white miso
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp vinegar
2 Tbs nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbs canola oil
medium leek, light green part only, halved, rinsed and sliced
large carrot, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
medium head green cabbage, shredded
8 oz package tempeh, crumbled
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 tsp fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp dried
1 cup vegetable broth or water
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Place 1 cup of the milk in a measuring glass or small bowl. Add the cashew butter, miso, Dijon mustard, vinegar, nutritional yeast, salt and a few grinds of black pepper. (If using water instead of vegetable broth, add a pinch more salt.) Whisk together – It’s okay if there are a few small lumps of cashew butter left.
3. Place the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the leek, carrot, celery and garlic and saute for about 10 minutes, or until vegetables are starting to soften.
4. Add the cabbage and increase the heat a bit. Continue to cook for 5 minutes, until most of the cabbage is wilted. Stir frequently so that the cabbage doesn’t brown too much.
5. Add the tempeh, chickpea flour and thyme and cook for 1 minute, stirring very well to fully incorporate the flour.
6. Re-whisk the milk mixture and add to the pot, stirring well. The mixture will be absorbed quickly.
7. Add the vegetable broth or water and mix well. Continue to cook and stir until there is little liquid at the bottom of the pan.
8. Transfer the mixture to a 9 X 9 baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, place the sweet potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Boil for about 10 minutes, until easily pierced with a fork.
10. Drain the sweet potatoes and return to the pot, adding the remaining 1/4 cup milk and a pinch of salt. Mash well.
11. Uncover the baking dish and carefully spread the sweet potatoes over the top, trying not to disturb the cabbage mixture. Grind some black pepper over the sweet potatoes. Return the casserole to the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
12. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. To serve, cut each portion with a knife then transfer to plate with a spatula.

Servings: 4

Amount Per Serving
Calories 431.67
Calories From Fat (33%) 144.56
% Daily Value
Total Fat 16.93g 26%
Saturated Fat 2.73g 14%
Cholesterol 0.62mg <1%
Sodium 910.7mg 38%
Potassium 1240.32mg 35%
Total Carbohydrates 53.99g 18%
Fiber 12.42g 50%
Sugar 13.32g
Protein 22.88g 46%

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Vegan MoFo and September CSA’s – Simple Food

October 28, 2010 at 8:31 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged brunch, CSA, pasta, salad, soup, tofu, vegan

I bit the bullet and signed up for VeganMoFo. To be honest, I’m excited but dreading the work and extra time it’s going to take to blog more often, but in the end I’m sure it will be worth it. My goal is to blog at least every weekday.

If you’re unfamiliar with VeganMoFo, this oughta explain it: http://veganmofo.wordpress.com/about/

VeganMoFo Headquarters will post roundups and updates, and this dedicated forum at The PPK will provide lively discussion and inspiration.

My plan for November is such:

Week One – Random but interesting posts to get caught up and eased in.
Week Two – Other bloggers’ recipes. I read so many food blogs with so many good recipes but never get around to making them, so I’ve picked five of my favorite blogs and will prepare their recipes.
Week Three – Vegetarian Times week. I’ve subscribed to VT for over five years, and I read regularly but rarely make any of their recipes. I’ve picked out meals from the October or November issue of VT from the last five years.
Week Four – Flavor Bible Challenge. The Flavor Bible is a big book which lists flavor matches for tons of different ingredients, so to get my creative juices flowing I flipped to five random pages and will make a dish with a match from that page that is either unusual or something I’ve never paired. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll adapt recipes or create my own, or both.

My criteria for choosing MoFo recipes is essentially that they fit the way I eat, which is seasonal, relatively low-cal/low-fat, and not ridiculously time-consuming.

Also, you must be living under a rock if you’re a vegan blogger who doesn’t know about this yet, but the first vegan blogger conference, Vida Vegan, is taking place in Portland next August. I haven’t registered yet but plan on doing so as soon as possible. I can’t wait to visit Portland for the first time!

On to the food!

9-9-10 CSA: fingerling potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, radishes, basil and lettuce

pears, tomatoes, purple peppers, plums, cantaloupe

The first thing I did with those fresh veggies was a big salad for lunch. This one had lettuce, cucumber, radish, tomato, purple peppers, and an herbed balsamic vinaigrette heavy on the dried oregano.

I wanted to use the zucchini raw, and I had what I thought was the great idea to blend it with the basil and some silken tofu to make a pasta sauce. I don’t know which ingredient was the culprit, but it turned out bitter and not that good. Thank goodness I added marinara and vegan parmesan to the whole wheat penne, which saved my dinner!

One day, I craved a big ol’ veggie plate. Roasted fingerlings, seasoned tomato, steamed squash and black eyed peas with onion, turnips, turnip greens, some other sort of green, and some liquid smoke. The plate was perfectly tasty and filling.

9-23-10 CSA: grapes, bok choy, radishes, honeydew and fennel

turnips, basil, swiss chard, pears, peppers and tomatoes

I actually did a really poor job of using this CSA delivery, and some of it went straight in the compost bin 😦 My coworker did give me some Thai basil from her backyard, which inspired me to put what was left into this.

Red curry soup with onion, green pepper, turnip, carrot, swiss chard and peas. I started with coconut oil and red curry paste and added everything else according to cooking time. I didn’t have any coconut milk on hand, nor did I want the extra fat, so I added some almond milk at the end to make it a little creamy.

10-7-10 CSA: green beans, collards, a leek, fennel, cilantro, lettuce

fingerling potatoes, swiss chard, purple peppers, plums, oranges, tomatoes, apples and radishes

Tofu scramble brunch with carrots, collard greens and Ezekiel toast with Earth Balance. I don’t normally butter my toast, but man-oh-man it was so worth it!

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August CSA’s, and Getting Dave to Eat Tofu

October 18, 2010 at 9:16 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged african, cabbage, chinese, CSA, greens, rice, sandwich, stew, tofu, vegan

8/12/10 CSA: cauliflower, cucumber, bell peppers, plums, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, pears, patty pan squash, basil and a cantaloupe

Most of these veggies went into a salad that wasn’t worth mentioning, but some of them went into this.

I turned a standard tagine recipe into a stew by adding more broth and some millet. Also included were cauliflower, carrot, chickpeas, tomatoes, peas and dried apricot. This turned out pretty well, but the flavor was a little watered down, so I guess I didn’t compensate for the extra ingredients by adding enough spices.

8/26/10 CSA: lemon cucumber, jalapenos, fennel, lettuce

lots of tomatoes, pears, apples, peaches and a cantaloupe

Some of these veggies went into a delicious Mexican-inspired meal which I will post about, just as soon as I get those recipes written up!

One Friday afternoon we came home from work, both ravenous. I didn’t have anything planned for dinner and wanted to throw something together quickly, and asked Dave if he wanted to have what I was having for dinner. When Dave is hungry and has no food in the house, it’s easy to get him to eat almost anything.

Ugly picture, tasty sandwich. I thawed a block of tofu that had been living in the freezer for lord knows how long, and baked it with a smoky maple sauce. Topped with a really nice tomato and crisp lettuce, and served on wheat toast with Vegenaise. Who could say no?

I had some rice left over from Chinese takeout which was begging to be made into fried rice, so I threw it in the wok with all the veggies I had – onion, garlic, carrot, celery, tons of cabbage, edamame and broccoli. This was light on rice and heavy on cabbage, and if I remember correctly Dave had some of it too.

Lastly, some braised mustard greens that I made to accompany some beanie weenies. I bought the greens in a pre-washed and -chopped package from Trader Joe’s, which made ’em that much quicker to prepare. I started by cooking onion and garlic slowly to develop the flavor, then added the greens, a chopped tomato and a thin layer of veggie broth. And, if I know myself at all, there was probably a bit of liquid smoke. The greens turned out really well, and I could’ve easily eaten the entire pan at once!

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July CSA’s – Pizza, Almondine, Beety Potatoes & Delicious Italian Food

October 12, 2010 at 9:48 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged beans, beets, breakfast, chickpeas, Clean Eating, corn, CSA, eggplant, green beans, italian, lasagna, Mexican, pizza, potatoes, roasting, salad, salsa, sandwich, tofu, vegan, zucchini

I’m considering participating in VeganMoFo this year. (If you don’t know what VeganMoFo is, check out Kittee’s post here.) While some people save up pictures and posts to meet their self-set VeganMoFo post quota, I would like to catch up to at least fairly recent so I’m not blogging about food I ate three months ago! It’s harder to remember the details of all these dishes, but I will do my best…

7/1/10 CSA: cauliflower, gypsy peppers, green beans, zucchini, basil and lettuce

peaches, tomatoes, grapes, carrots and a watermelon

Taco salad! Lettuce, tomatoes, roasted corn, cilantro, a quick ranch dressing made from Trader Joe’s reduced-fat mayo (which explains the weird color and sheen), and to be honest, I don’t remember what the taco part on top was. I think it might have been sauteed peppers, mushrooms, onions, spices and other stuff – Whatever it was, I remember it being good!

Zucchini pizza on a brown rice tortilla with basil and Daiya mozzarella.

Tofu Almondine with Lemony Green Beans, adapted from Clean Eating Magazine’s Chicken Almondine recipe. I also had some dry-roasted cauliflower on the side. The flavor of the tofu and green beans was really good, but it was kind of dry. I felt some sort of sauce would have brought it together.

7/15/10 CSA: grapes, lettuce, beets, purple basil, corn and a lemon cucumber

peaches, tomatoes, plums, an onion, a cantaloupe and carrots

I wanted to eat the corn raw, and I remembered that when I was in England I tried corn mixed with tuna salad and actually really liked it. So, I made some chickpea tuna salad, mixed in the corn, and rolled it up in a Flat Out with lettuce. Those are Food Should Taste Good chips in the background. I love their chips! They’re so good that I don’t buy them very often, because I’ll eat the whole bag much too fast.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided that I would make beet-stuffed potatoes. I baked the potatoes and beets, sauteed some minced leeks, scooped out the potatoes then mashed the insides with the beets, the leeks, some parsley and probably some sort of vinegar, knowing me. They turned out a little dry, but tasted really good, and turned everything red!

Clean-out-the-fridge Roasted Veggies: sweet potato, onion, portobello, tomato, swiss chard and possibly some other things. I roasted everything except the chard, then tossed the hot veggies with the greens to wilt them slightly.

7/29/10 CSA: watermelon, lettuce, cucumbers & corn. I don’t know why they keep sending me watermelons! I don’t like ’em!

tomatoes, an onion, nectarines, grapefruit and grapes

Salad: lettuce, corn, black beans, lime-marinated cucumbers, salsa & pepitas. Super tasty and light!

Caponata over gluten free pasta. I used this recipe for the caponata. The raisins and red wine vinegar and capers made this TOTALLY delicious. The eggplant seemed a little undercooked, but that might have been because I reduced the oil called for a little. I would definitely make this again.

To go with the caponata and add some protein, I made mashed white beans, I think using this recipe. They were easy and tasty, with a very satisfying mouthfeel.

I was going to slice the zucchini into long, thin strips and use it as the “noodles” in a lasagna, but I was feeling really lazy the night I planned to make it, so I sliced it into half-moons instead and threw the lasagna together as a free-form casserole. Still just as tasty. Also in there was tofu ricotta, spinach, jarred sauce and Daiya mozzarella. This post makes me feel like I eat a lot of Daiya since I’ve mentioned it twice, but I’m pretty sure the cheese here was leftover from the pizza above.

This isn’t CSA-related, but I wanted to share it because it was really good – Tofu Migas for breakfast. I’ve never had real migas but have read several descriptions, so I figured I could wing it. I scrambled the tofu with Mexican spices then added salsa, tortilla strips and some green onion. I would definitely make something like this again if I had an extra tortilla laying around.

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Beet Hummus, Lots of Veggies, and Pancakes for One

July 6, 2010 at 10:03 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged beans, beets, cauliflower, CSA, hummus, italian, kohlrabi, Laptop Lunchbox, my recipes, noodles, pancakes, potatoes, rosemary, salad, soup, tempeh, vegan, Vegan Fire & Spice

I’ve been pretty busy lately, and I realized tonight that I’m going to be even more busy for the next two or three weeks, so I wanted to make sure to get a post in before I go haywire!

Here’s a CSA delivery I got way back at the beginning of June.

broccolini, rosemary, lettuce & bok choy

blueberries, peaches, beets, potatoes, cantaloupe & cauliflower

With the beets and lettuce, I decided to make beet hummus lettuce wraps, even though I had never had beet hummus before. It just sounded good.

I topped the wraps with shredded carrot and daikon radish, which was a great idea. Right around this time, I started counting calories and making an effort to lower the fat content of my meals and include more veggies, so you’ll see a lot of meals like this from me for a while. That’s why this hummus is low-fat, with no tahini or oil. I went back and forth trying to decide if I should include at least a little tahini, but in the end the beets made the texture and flavor so nice that it didn’t need any added fat. I meant to include a clove of garlic but forgot, so that would be a nice addition.

Low-Fat Beet Hummus

1 bunch beets, about three large
1 15.5-oz can chickpeas, or 1 1/2 cups cooked
2 Tbs lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 dash cayenne
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp minced fresh dill
3 Tbs water

1. Trim the beets, but do not peel. Bring a medium pot of water to boil. Add beets to water, cover, and simmer for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until beets are easily pierced with a fork. Drain and let cool. Once cool, peel the beets with the side of a spoon and chop.

2. Place beets and all remaining ingredients, except water, in a food processor. Blend until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides as necessary. Add water, 1 Tbs at a time, to reach desired consistency.

Servings: 6

Amount Per Serving
Calories 102.58
Calories From Fat (7%) 7.04
% Daily Value
Total Fat 0.84g 1%
Saturated Fat 0.09g <1%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 311.27mg 13%
Potassium 334.15mg 10%
Total Carbohydrates 20.61g 7%
Fiber 4.61g 18%
Sugar 4.72g
Protein 4.11g 8%

Lunch the next day, with leftover risotto and dried pears.

This is kidney bean and broccoli stem ragout. I meant to use the broccolini in whole for this dish, but by the time I got around to cooking it, the poor broccolini was looking pretty bad, so I just used the thin stems.

With the ragout, I served rosemary-potato-cauliflower mash. Adding the cauliflower was a nice way to still have potatoes but cut the calories a little.

Lunch the next day, with persian cucumbers and blackberries.

Next CSA delivery: lettuce, carrots, zucchini, chard & cauliflower.

Tomatoes, strawberries, plums, cantaloupe, blueberries and nectarines.

With the return of summer and fresh zucchini, I returned to my spiralizer. This is soba and zucchini noodles with carrot-ginger sauce, mung beans, long beans, cilantro and green onion. I adapted the carrot-ginger sauce from this recipe, but to be honest I didn’t like it very much. I think I just don’t like fresh carrot juice though, so if it sounds good to you, give it a try! One great tip I did learn from this meal is that when you mix cooked soba noodles and raw zucchini noodles, you can barely tell the difference texture-wise. It’s a fantastic way to extend the volume of soba noodles without adding a ton of calories.

Along with the noodles, I sauteed some purple kohlrabi. I wasn’t going to have a side dish, but when I saw the kohlrabi at the farmer’s market that morning, I had to have it. I love kohlrabi.

I had leftover carrot-ginger sauce and mung beans, so I combined them with short grain brown rice, arame and steamed broccoli for another meal.

One pot meals rule my world! This is tempeh with leeks, carrots, swiss chard, mushrooms, capers, tomatoes, white wine and quinoa. Delish.

To use up the last of the CSA veggies, I turned to Vegan Fire & Spice. This is the Kashmiri Vegetable Soup. Simple yet tasty, I really enjoyed the emphasis on cardamom in the spice mix. You could add protein and greens to this soup and call it a complete meal. And, because the veggies are cut into chunks, the prep was really fast.

Soup close up!

To go with the soup, I made Many Bean Salad, also from Vegan Fire & Spice. This certainly lived up to the cookbook title – it was spicy! I really liked the combination of beans and the addition of peas, which gave the salad a lovely texture.

A few Sundays ago, Dave left the house ridiculously early to attend a Nascar race up in Sonoma, and when I finally got out of bed I had a mad craving for pancakes. Seeing as I’m doing this calorie counting thing, I wanted to make filling, relatively low-cal pancakes without having any leftovers. I googled pancakes for one and came across this Buckwheat Pancakes for One recipe, which turned out fabulously.

I didn’t have any buckwheat flour though, so I used half whole wheat pastry and half quinoa flour. They were a little gummy in the middle, but I actually like my pancakes that way. Because I only had to cook one batch, these pancakes were much more quick to make than my usual recipe. And, my entire breakfast was less than 350 calories, including the 2 tsp of blueberry agave nectar on top. I will definitely be adding this to my weekend repertoire!

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CSA’s & Laptop Lunches

October 12, 2009 at 5:34 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged biscuits, black eyed peas, bread, cheese, corn, CSA, Eat Drink & Be Vegan, figs, gravy, Jake, Laptop Lunchbox, quinoa, salad, sandwich, soup, squash, tempeh, The Uncheese Cookbook, vegan, Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons

Geez, it’s been a long time since I posted my foods! I’ll try to keep my rambling and descriptions short, since I’ve got a lot of pictures!

8-27 CSA: corn, rosemary, pears, zucchini, cucumber & lavender

onions, figs, tomatoes, beets, squash & honeydew melon

When I got this CSA box, I was actually growing tired of snacking on fresh figs. Gasp! I’m spoiled, I know. I decided to make a poached fig salad, based on a recipe I found online that I can’t find again now! Which is a shame, cause it was really good. The fresh figs were poached in a whole bottle of port, then the wine was reduced down to a syrup. There was also a simple vinaigrette, pisatchios, shallots and faux feta cheese. The poached figs were STRONG, but good. I also had some herbed pumpkin seed crackers.

I had taken note of the Teriyaki Quinoa recipe in Eat, Drink & Be Vegan during my August cleanse but didn’t get a chance to try it then. I’m glad I tried it afterwards, because I love it! It’s so simple – just cook the quinoa and mix it with the sauce. I served the quinoa with stir-fried veggies (seasoned only with tamari and ume plum vinegar), and instead of sprinkling with sesame seeds as the recipe called for, I used some sesame gomasio that I had bought for no specific reason.

Quinoa close-up! Looks like…quinoa…

I had a huge heirloom tomato sitting around doing absolutely no good, and I decided I wanted to slice it up for a grilled cheese sandwich. There’s a big hole in the middle cause the tomato had a big, tough core that had to be cut out.

I wanted to make bread machine bread for my sandwich and…FAIL. I modified a multigrain bread machine recipe that I found online and it really didn’t rise at all. It was edible but incredibly dense. I don’t know if the recipe was bad or if it was the fact that I used the time delay feature and the ingredients sat there for hours before the machine started mixing.

The cheese in the sandwich is the Gooey Grilled Cheese from The Uncheese Cookbook, which I love. I also love pickles on grilled cheese. On the side was broccoli and cucumber with goddess dressing, and oven-baked beet chips.

I had corn and squashes left over from the CSA box, and thought they would make nice side dishes for black-eyed-pea gravy and biscuits. I have no idea where I got the gravy idea from, but it worked out.

For the biscuits, I used Happy Herbivore’s Whole Wheat Low Fat Biscuit recipe, and they turned out quite well! I rolled mine out and cut them into circles with a glass though, rather than just dropping them like the recipe calls for. That way you get the flaky sides, and they’re easy to cut in half.

Gravy close-up! The gravy turned out okay, but it was a little too acidic and the onions weren’t cooked enough, so I need to work on it a bit before I have an official recipe. For the creamed corn, I just cooked some corn kernels till tender, blended up some of them in the food processor, added it back to the pan with some soy milk and cooked a bit just to thicken. The squash and zucchini were sauteed with probably a pinch too much red pepper flakes.

9-10 CSA: lettuce, thyme, zucchini, swiss chard & grapes

tomatoes, plums, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, garlic & oranges

There’s nothing particularly special about this salad, except that it was topped with Annie’s French Dressing, which I had never seen before and like a lot.

With the abundance of tomatoes in this CSA box, I thought I ought to try my hand at making gazpacho. I’d had gazpacho before a number of times but never made it. Turns out it’s ridiculously easy to make! The blender does most of the work. I followed the recipe from Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons and it was perfect.

On the side is a slice of Bianca’s awesome Whole Wheat Beer Bread. I grew up eating beer bread, and this totally hit the spot. I added FYH cheddar and some rosemary just cause I could. I also totally screwed up and mis-read the recipe. I thought the bread only baked for 30 minutes, so I pulled it out then, let it cool, and was totally surprised that my first slice was completely raw in the middle! Then I re-read the recipe – doh! It bakes for 55 minutes. The slice on my plate up there went in the toaster oven just to finish, which is why it looks funny, and the rest of the loaf went back in the oven. Read your recipes all the way through, people!

9-24 CSA: swiss chard, lettuce, cucumber & more lettuce

beets, tomatoes, red onions, grapes & peppers. I also got a galia melon but it didn’t find its way into the picture.

Another sandwich, this time on store-bought sprouted bread. I had an avocado ready to use, and thought it would go perfectly with the CSA tomato and lettuce in a great sandwich. I was thinking along the lines of a BLT, so I sauteed tempeh then glazed it with soy sauce, maple syrup and liquid smoke. Delicious! The sandwich also had red onion jam, spicy mustard and a slice of vegan cheese. Those nuclear chips in the front there are Buffalo Chips from Food Should Taste Good. They didn’t really taste buffalo-y, but they were tangy and spicy and good. If you haven’t tried Food Should Taste Good chips yet, do so! They feel so much lighter than other chips, and their flavors are fun and imaginative.

10-8 CSA: arugula, lettuce, acorn squash, more lettuce & baby bok choy

plums, potatoes, apples, oranges, tomatoes, onions, peppers & beets

I haven’t done anything with last week’s CSA box yet, but…there it is.

Laptop lunches! I don’t have the time these days to neatly pack everything every night, but I do when I can.

9-8 pasta salad, steamed carrots, beanie weenies, cauliflower

9-10 biscuit & black-eyed pea gravy, creamed corn, spicy sauteed squash

9-15 cheddar-rosemary beer bread, gazpacho, baked beans, grapes

9-17 sesame noodles, sauteed cabbage, grapes

9-28 peppers lavender tofu, scalloped zucchini,
slow roasted tomatoes, grapes

10-1 multigrain sesame-beet pilaf, spicy daikon slaw, gf corn muffin, grapes

Bonus Jake.

And armless Jake.

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Random Meals & Laptop Lunches

August 3, 2009 at 7:02 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged black beans, chard, cheese, corn, CSA, curry, eggplant, farmers market, Laptop Lunchbox, lettuce wraps, mushrooms, okra, pasta, risotto, roasting, salad, salsa, slaw, spiralizer, vegan, zucchini

I feel like I lost my cooking mojo there for a few weeks in July and had a hard time figuring out what to eat, so I have no theme for this post. The theme is random!

What does one do when one has leftover filling from tomato-basil-mozzarella sandwiches but no bread?

One makes tomato-basil-mozzarella bites. Yum!

This is a secret risotto that I tested for a friend to submit to a recipe contest.

CSA delivery…

Corn, yellow onions, peppers & lettuce mix

Grapes, red onions, peaches, tomatoes, cherries & an eggplant

I like eggplant but don’t always like cooking it. It seems like most eggplant cooking techniques use a lot of oil, so I wanted to do something different.

My solution was eggplant and lentil curry. This had a whole can of light coconut milk in it, so it wasn’t exactly low fat anyway…but I tried!

Thinking back, I don’t really know why I did this, but I made a little slaw to go with the curry. This had carrot, celery and broccoli stalk and a Vegennaise-based dressing. (Again, so much for keeping the meal low-fat!) Oh, I think I made it cause I had broccoli stems that needed using…

I wanted to make a salsa with the corn and tomatoes, so I made some mostly-raw lettuce tacos. On the bottom is seasoned black beans, them lime-marinated mushrooms, corn salsa and fresh cilantro. These were very tasty but very messy to eat, because the fancy lettuce at TJ’s looks like it would be good for lettuce wraps, but in reality was decidedly not. In the back are TJ’s corn-flax chips, which are slightly addicting.

I got a spiralizer! I’ve been jealous of other blogger’s zucchini noodles for far too long, so I finally bought one.

…and made zucchini and squash noodles. I used the larger noodle shredder the first time, and they were a bit too large and super curly. The blade with the smaller holes is much better for this purpose.

I had fresh basil in the fridge and I was feeling too lazy to make a raw sauce, so I went the easy route and added spaghetti sauce, basil, toasted pine nuts and almond parmesan. This was very tasty! The sauce separates and gets watery if it sits with the zucchini, so I want to try a different type of sauce next time.

This is a Saturday afternoon clean-out-the-kitchen salad. It has red potatoes, purple potatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, celery, carrot and sliced veggie dog, with a Vegennaise dressing. It wasn’t the most fantastic thing I’ve ever eaten, but it was pretty and it got the job done.

Farmers market purchases: rainbow chard, okra, baby cucumbers, jalapenos, peaches and nectarines, a golden and regular zucchini, a lemon, broccoli and strawberries. All for under $20!

The main purpose of my farmers market trip was to get ingredients to make my Southern Style Dolmades for a potluck that night. I ran late and didn’t have time to assemble the rolls, so I just took the filling and the sauce and hoped it would be okay. Turns out people really liked it as it was! That was a big relief.

I realized while at the market that I hadn’t had anything with cheesy sauce for a long time (such a travesty), so I bought the broccoli with plans to make this:

Shells n’ cheese n’ broccoli. You can’t beat it. I used my favorite cheesy sauce, which is tofu based, but I used the wrong kind of tofu and eyeballed the ingredients and so it didn’t turn out the best it ever has, but it still hit the spot.

To go with my pasta, I roasted the okra. Look at the size of these okras! They are with a regular sized golden zucchini and jalapeno for reference.

All roasted up.

I still had the chard leaves from my non-roll making debacle and hadn’t a clue what to do with them since they were already boiled. So I asked The PPK for ideas, and one member suggested peanut sauce. Bingo! Peanut sauce makes everything better. I still ended up making rolls, but went a different direction with the filling.

So these are quinoa, pepper, carrot and zucchini chard rolls with fresh cilantro, basil and peanut sauce. It was very yummy! I was glad I could salvage my $4 worth of boiled organic chard.

I won’t be using my laptop lunchbox for a reason to be discussed in my next post, so I’ll catch up with lunches. Most of them are repeats from the meals above anyway.