vegan

Red Kuri squash salad bowl

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Since getting a CSA this year, I had the opportunity to try new things I have never had before. In a previous post, I made a pea shoot salad for the first time.
Two weeks ago we got a red Kuri squash in our CSA box from the Angelic Organics farm.  I got inspired by this recipe and modified it based on which ingredients I had on hand and also made it dairy free since it called for goat cheese. But first, here is a red Kuri squashIMG_4268I did not peel the squash. The skin is tender enough to eat when cooked and I am all for maximizing usage. The seeds can also be roasted and enjoyed as a snack much like pumpkin seeds.

I made the salad with the arugula that was in this week’s CSA box and  used a sweet vinaigrette to balance its spiciness. I like how the slightly sweet flavor of the squash marries with the sweet and spicy arugula.

I also added tomatoes since we have a lot of those right now.

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Red Kuri squash salad bowl
– 1 red kuri squash
– olive oil
– salt (optional)

Salad:
– 3 cups of arugula (can substitute with baby arugula or spinach)
– 1 can of cannellini beans
– 1 onion
– 2 garlic cloves or 1 big clove
– 1 big tomato or two medium tomatoes, sliced

Salad dressing
– 3 tablespoon olive oil
– 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
– juice of 1 lime
– 1 teaspoon mustard
– 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup
– salt
– pepper

Heat the oven at 385°F. Scrub the skin of the squash clean and pat dry. Cut it in half and scoop the seeds out. Cut each half of the squash in two. Brush the top of the slices with some olive oil. Salt and pepper as needed. Bake for 35-40 minutes until tender.

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Remove the beans from the can and rinse. Slice the onion thinly and chop the garlic. Heat some olive oil in a pan and first add the garlic to flavor the oil then add the onion and saute for a few minutes until tender. Add the beans and saute for another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper as needed.  Set aside to cool. img_4323

Mix the ingredients for the salad dressing in a small bowl

Rinse and dry the arugula. I chopped the leaves with scissors since they were quite big but if using baby arugula, just leave as is. Place the arugula in a big salad bowl, add the beans and salad dressing. Toss.

Scoop the salad onto the roasted squash. Enjoy!

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Vegan chocolate-dipped coconut macarons

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My son is now 3 years old. The other night, he told me he wanted to make some treats with me. Everyday he comes up with a new word and that was the first time I heard him say “treats”. So I asked him to elaborate what kind of treats. He said: “We should make some delicious treats for Christmas”. That was clear. It is not Christmas yet, but this mama will not refuse an invitation to make some goodies to eat.

I recently just bought a boat load of shredded coconut, so I thought we could make coconut macarons. And since chocolate always make things better, we decided that chocolate dipped macarons would make the ideal treat.IMG_2128

I was pleasantly surprised at how this recipe turned out. It is sweet from the maple surup but not excessively and the dark chocolate brings just the right amount of sweetness with a tinge of bitterness.
The hardest part of this recipe is to wait for it to cool down and the chocolate to set before eating it. My son and I may or may have not eaten a few as soon as we dipped them in chocolate, I shall not tell. I’ll just say that this was indeed a treat.

Vegan Chocolate-dipped Coconut Macarons
3 cups of shredded unsweetened coconutIMG_2142
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven at 350°F.
Put the shredded coconut in a food processor or a high speed blender. Blend until you get a soft and doughy consistency. Add in the vanilla and maple syrup and blend some more. Transfer it to a bowl for ease of scooping.
Spoon out the coconut into balls onto an oiled baking sheet. I used a half tablespoon measuring spoon to make little bitesizes macarons with the coconut, but if you have a small icecream scoop, it would work as well. gently brush the coconut with melted coconut oil.
Bake for 8-10min until the bottom and edges are light brown. Cool on the baking sheet.
While the macarons are cooling, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for 1-1.5min until melted.IMG_2165
Carefully dip the bottom of the cooled macarons in the melted chocolate, they are somewhat fragile and can easily crumble under your fingers. Drizzle some of the melted chocolate on the macarons. Cool on a sheet of parchment paper until the chocolate solidifies again (if you can wait that long). Store in an airtight container.

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Popcorn galore: dark chocolate and caramel popcorn

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Quick to prepare, simple and delicious snack…introducing the popcorn!
For a few days now, my son has been asking for popcorn for snack. And he wants to freshly pop them every time. And who blames him? Popping corn is really fun. When they pop, he runs around the kitchen saying “Pop !Pop! Pop! ” And freshly popped corn just tastes so good.

I do like the natural flavor, but this time around I splurged and flavored them two different ways: dark chocolate and caramel.
If you don’t feel like popping corn as I did here, you can certainly use pre-popped corn in bags (non salty or only lightly salted) or microwave popcorn. It works just as well.IMG_5895

To make popcorn in a pan
– 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
– 1/2 cup popcorn kernels

Heat up a large saucepan on medium-high heat (you need a pan with a lid). When the pan is hot, put in the oil along with 3 popcorn kernels, cover with the lid. When the 3 kernels pop, dump the rest of the kernels in the pan, careful to make one layer of kernels at the bottom of the pan, so all the kernels get heat. Cover with the lid. Gently shake the pan from side to side to move the kernels around so they don’t IMG_5887burn on one side. When the kernels start to pop,  continue shaking the pan so that the unpopped kernels always fall to the bottom and get heated to pop. Turn the heat off when there is a couple of seconds between the pops. Be careful to wait until the popping stops before opening the lid to avoid getting possibly burned by a flying popcorn.

Dark chocolate popcorn
– 2 cups of popcorn
– 2 tablespoon of mini dark chocolate chips

Heat up a sauce pan on medium-low heat. When pan is hot, add the chocolate chips. Move them around to help them melt faster. As soon as they are melted, add in the popcorn and mix well with a wooden spoon until there is no chocolate left at the bottom of the pan, but it is all coating the popcorn. Cool on a sheet covered with parchment paper to IMG_5900avoid sticking.

Caramel popcorn
– 2 tbsp brown sugar
– 1 tbsp vegetable spread (here I use the Coconut Spread from Earth balance)
– 2 cups of popcorn

Heat the pan on medium-high. Sprinkle the sugar in the pan so there are no clumps that will melt unevenly. Lower the heat to medium. As soon as the sugar has melted, add the vegetable spread and mix with a wooden spoon. Add the popcorn and mix well until all the caramel is all covering the popcorn and none is left at the bottom of the pan. Cool on a sheet covered with parchment paper to avoid sticking.

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Some days, one just needs a picker-upper. Today is one of these days. Nothing really dramatic or crazy happened, just that it has been a long IMG_5840week already. And to top it off my babysitter did not show today when I had planned to go down to the office. So I thought, okay let’s enjoy the afternoon and head down to the beach then! So we went, only to be caught by a fast arriving storm, which turned the sky from a clear blue to black in 10min. We run home, well, I ran , pushing the little man in the stroller, but we still got wet. Anyway, today is one of those days when chocolate chips need to be put to good use.

The chocolate chips I use here are the mini kind and they are allergen-free. Since we are on a dairy-free, egg-free and nuts-free diet, this is my go-to ingredient for anything that calls for chocolate. We also just eat them as is and they are delicious.

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Oatmeal chocolate chips cookie

Wet ingredients
1/3 cup sunflower seed butter
2tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup dairy-free milk (I use a mix of coconut milk and flax milk)
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven at 425°C. Whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix with a wooden spoon.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spoon the cookie dough onto the parchment paper with a tablespoon. Unlike regular cookies, these cookies do not spread out and will stay the size as you have spooned them, so there is no need to space them too faIMG_5833r apart.
Bake in the oven at 425°C for 8min.

Cool the cookies on a rack. Enjoy!
The cookie dough can also be frozen on the cookie sheet (already in cookie form). When frozen, transfer to a Ziploc bag. They can be baked at a later time when in need of an emergency cookie.

Very berry ice cream

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One of my favorite food ever is ice cream. When I found out my son was allergic to dairy,  we had to ban ice cream from our house. And because I was still nursing him, I also had to forego having my favorite treat even outside the house, otherwise he would get an allergic reaction from drinking my milk. It was a hard thing for me to give that up. Yes, sure I could still have sorbet but I really wanted and missed the “cream” part of ice cream

So imagine my joy when I found out I could have vegan ice cream. I was so excited to put my ice cream maker to good use again after it sitting idle on its shelf because I had to give up making frozen yogourt.
One way of getting the “cream”factor is using coconut cream. I like it best with non-fruity flavor like chocolate or vanilla, as the coconut blends well with those flavors.
But for fruity flavors I prefer using avocado, because the flavor is less dominant and it goes well with fruits. And boy, is it creamy! I actually have to cut it out with some juice otherwise it gets pretty heavy.

For this berry ice cream. I actually mixed avocado with a bit of coconut cream and fruit juice and blend it well. I first tried to just add pureed berries in but then the fruity taste is not very strong  as the fruit is diluted in with the avocado cream. I found out that reducing the blueberry puree first with a sweetener intensifies the flavor when it mixed with the coconut cream. The result is a fruity creamy bliss.

Very berry avocado ice cream IMG_5479
– 1/2 lbs of frozen berry mix (fresh works as well). I use the Very berry Cherry blend from Trader Joe’s
– 1/3 cup honey + more to sweeten to taste if needed
– 2 medium avocados or 3 small
– 1/3 cup of coconut cream (from a can of full fat coconut milk)
– 1/4 cup orange juice
– Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1-1.5 tablespoon)

To get coconut cream, place the can of coconut milk in the fridge for 24 hours or more. this will cause the cream (the fatty part of coconut milk) to separate. Upon taking the can out, gently invert it upside down, open it and pour out the clearer liquid now on top. It can be discarded or it can be used for smoothies. The creamy part that is left is the coconut cream. Reserve it in the fridge until use.

In a sauce pan, mix the berries with the 1/3 cup of honey, heat on high until it simmers then reduce the heat and keep it only stirring but not boiling over. Stir regularly to avoid it to stick. Heat until it is reduced and the liquid a bit syrupy, about 15min or so. Cool it down to room temperature. When cool, blend the mix until very smooth. Pass the fruit puree through a sieve to remove the seeds.

Place the avocado, the orange juice and the lemon juice in the blender and blend until very smooth. Add in the coconut cream and mix again until very smooth. Finally, add the fruit puree and mix well. Taste for sweetness and if necessary, add some honey and tablespoon at a time as desired.

Churn the mix in an ice cream maker until ready (about 15-20 min). This results in a soft-serve consistency. For scoopable ice cream, place in the freezer for 2-3 hours.

 

 

 

Pasta salad with creamy pesto

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Summer meals are best enjoyed on the patio with friends and family…and salads make the best summer meals.
Pasta salads are always well appreciated in our household since our son absolutely loves pasta. He will have it at every meal, including breakfast, if he can have his way. I am happy to indulge him, so my way to compromise is to add plenty of vegetables with the pasta. So far, he will eat almost everything you give him as long you feed him, but you gotta let him pick the pasta himself. Letting him just feed himself will defy the purpose of the pasta salad as he will just eat the pasta and leave the rest untouched.

The choices of vegetables to add is based on what is on sale and in season, in addition to my “go-to” frozen veggie mix. It is a big bag of frozen mix I get from our local grocery store that has green beans, cubed carrots, peas, lima beans and corn. It never fails me and I practically add that sh*&^% in every dish.
Anyway, no matter what veggies you add for this dish though, cooked veggies will go better with the creamy pesto. I always cook the veggies quite soft as our son will not eat anything too crunchy but  a crunchier version can be made for less picky eaters.

Finally, the pesto! This has been one of my best find of this summer. I started to grow some things on our deck and I have two pots of basil and they grow so well we had to find ways to use the basil leaves, hence the pesto! The creamy pesto in this recipe is a lighter, tangier version of pesto and it totally rocks this pasta salad!

Pasta salad with creamy pesto

  • asparagus – 1 cup cooked and cut 1 inch longIMG_5327
  • spinach- 1/2 or 1 bunch depending how big
  • 2 medium zucchini
  • 1 cup of mixed frozen veggies : peas, carrots, green beans, lima beans, corn or  about 1/4 cup of each
  • 1/2 lb of pasta of your choice
  • salt

IMG_5323For the pesto (this makes a lot, feel free to cut  the amounts in half, but it also stores very well in the fridge)
– 1 avocado
– 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
– 1/4 cup of water
– Juice of 1 lemon (or 3tbsp)
– 2 cups of basil leaves
– 6 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Cut the zucchini in thin slices (1/4 inch thick). Saute the zucchini slices in a pan with a little bit of oil until it browns on the edges and it is soft. Add the spinach to the pan and saute with the zucchini until it is wilted. Transfer the zucchini and spinach to a large bowl.
Steam, boil  or saute the other vegetables to desired softness or crunchiness. Add in the bowl containing the zucchini and spinach, mix up with a spoon or hand mix. Sprinkle with a bit of salt to taste.

To make the pesto, mix all the ingredients but the salt in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth and salt to taste.

Serve the salad and add a dollup of pesto on top. Taa-dahh!!Enjoy!!