Whole Grains Challenge
Sep 2nd
A while ago I signed up for the RealAge newsletter. They sent out this great article about fairly uncommon whole grains and their cancer prevention benefits. It is a new family goal to come up with a favorite family recipe that has each of these grains as a main ingredient: kasha (buckwheat), quinoa, millet, and spelt.
We already have a favorite summer salad with bulgar, feta, grapes, walnuts… but we are waiting for grapes to be in season (or at least cheaper). We will share that recipe soon, but as for these other four grains- we either have never tried them (millet and spelt) or haven’t found a favorite family recipe yet.
A new mission! We accept the challenge.
Does anyone have a good recipe with millet of spelt?
Sweet Chili Lime Tofu with Steamed Collards and Quinoa
Aug 15th
Really great recipe from our dearest love, Vegan Yum Yum. Sweet Chili Lime Tofu with Steamed Collards and Quinoa is right up our alley. The kids liked the tofu and the quinoa (which we called rice and is seemed to work). Quinoa helps add a recipe to our whole grain family challenge as well, so that is always good. The kids didn’t really do much more that try a bite of the collards, but at least it was a bite. The tofu was sublime. This is going to be a family favorite.
Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding
Aug 4th
A Mark Bittman recipe for Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding- couldn’t be better. Better than any other pudding I have ever eaten.
Apricot BBQ Tofu, Avocado Marinated Kale Salad and Southwestern Corn Pudding
Jul 25th
This was an excellent meal. The Apricot BBQ Tofu is a repeat from Veganomicon. Good stuff. The southwestern corn pudding is the obvious standout in this meal. It was from Veganomicon. We love this recipe and we love this cookbook! We are also trying to get more kale recipies because how vitamin rich kale apparently is. This salad was excellent. We got the recipe from a friend’s friend. Thanks for passing it along, Brenda!
Avocado Marinated Kale Salad
Ingredients
1 head kale, destemmed- we used dino
2 avocados (can use 2 Tbsp olive oil instead- we didn’t)
3 lemons (or lemon juice)
2 large tomatoes
handful of mung bean sprouts (I usually don’t use, mostly because I don’t have them on hand)
sea salt to taste
cayenne pepper to taste
Method
Wash kale very well. Remove leaves for inner stem with you hands or knife. Place into a large mixing bowl and with yourhands rip the kale into small bite size pieces. Scoop out the avocado into the bowl. Juice the lemons into the bowl. Dice the tomatoes and add. Add the sea salt and cayenne and then dig your hands in an mush it all up until the kale softens. Add the sprouts about half way through to get them incorporated, but not demolished. This is good right away and also saves well.
Notes
Kale has the highest level of antioxidants of all the greens. The kids will eat it as well. They prefer dino kale- which we got for this salad at the farmer’s market.
Slug Traps
Jul 25th
This is the first summer that we have tried red cabbage. The cabbages and our lettuces have been covered in slugs looking for a meal. I have been going out with a flashlight in the evening when they come out to pick them off. With all the vacations and time away, I needed more tricks. I decided to make beer slug traps, which after only a couple days caught several dozen slugs and a bunch of earwigs. I refined the design with some larger openings and added a couple more and they worked pretty well. It seems like a ton of work for a couple cabbages. I think next summer it makes sense to rotate through different quick lettuces and greens.
Cleveland Wok
Jul 20th
This is a really excellent buffet, however there weren’t a ton of meat free options and while the food was extremely fresh and yummy, this won’t become a routine. The hot and sour soup was amazing. I mean amazing. I found this on a website that was supposed to be vegan friendly. I am not really sure why. They had excellent egg foo yung, green beans, chinese potatoes, and noodles. I also really liked their egg rolls. Yummy. Most everything else was meat based.
Stuffed Artichokes with Italian Tofu and Pasta
Jul 8th
Our neighbor gave us some old issues of Vegetarian Times, which we discontinued several years ago- but we have decided to renew our subscription. We found a great recipe for stuffed artichokes. We found some nice artichokes at Kowalski’s, which were great (more expensive, but far superior). We had two from Kowalski’s Market and two from Whole Foods. The ones from Whole Foods were local and organic, but were like cardboard and flavorless. Obviously the artichokes weren’t a hit with the kids… I guess we kind of knew that going into it. Our oldest, 5, tried them at least. Our middle, 2, passed.
The pasta was obviously the biggest hit with the kids as was the Italian marinated tofu which was from Veganomicon. So far everything that we have really liked has been from this cookbook. It is quite a find.
Baked Apricot BBQ Tofu, Sweet Potato Fries and Broccoli
Jun 25th
This delicious meal was real hit. The kids loved the Apricot BBQ Tofu, which was from Veganomicon. Sweet Potato Fries are always a hit too with the kids and the two of us, since the kids can feed their weird ketchup addiction (I found our oldest dunking apples in ketchup the other day) and we both love sweet potatoes. My wife makes them with a little garlic, cinnamon, cayenne, salt… oil… she blanched them first this time and baked them on parchment paper- so they were nice and firm.
I heart Whole Foods
Jun 20th
We always thought that shopping at Whole Foods was a sure fired way to spend a ton of money on food, but when my wife compared the prices- it turns out that depending on what we are talking about- we had that completely wrong. They also have a wider selection of many things and much cheaper prices than our neighborhood Kowalski’s Market for sure. We try to completely avoid Target if possible, since walking in the door means that we are going to spend a ton more money- usually on incidentals that we didn’t really need (damn you end cap marketing!) not that things are more expensive.
Whole Foods is definitely the place for a vast variety of tofu, especially firm tofu. We prefer the extra firm West Soy- which is the only place that we have found it locally. Tons of organic and locally grown produce at half the price as our neighborhood Kowalski’s. The price is right on most of the veggies. There is a huge selection of every veggie that we have ever heard of and can’t find- is there and everything is cheaper, organic, locally grown. For example, we found local braeburn apples at 1.99/lb. at Whole Foods versus much more a pound elsewhere and usually the apples are from Washington. Just awesome- oh, and Almond Milk is also half the price there as well.
Huge selection, awesome prices. Done.
Hemp Dream (Original)
Jun 15th
We got the idea to try this from our friends in PA. I used this in a “Spicy and Cheezy Potato and Carrot Stirfry”
(shown) and it thickened up like… a dream… a hemp dream. Very creamy. The dish did have a weird taste which my wife and I attributed to the fact that I put kale into the mix. Not sure if that was it or the combination of the cheese and hemp milk- more experiments to come on this recipe, which isn’t ready for prime time… I KNOW the kids wouldn’t have eaten it, so I tried it on a night where it was my turn to cook and after the kids had been at a birthday party- so had already eaten. I think it would have been better without the kale and maybe some red peppers instead. The kale was an awesome addition, but it’s distinct flavor… with the rest… not so good. The cheese sauce was made with a rue and a little bit of queso fresco and colby jack cheese… even though we did start cutting cheese our of our diet… but I hate to see things to waste. Instead of just throwing it away- I thought of it as “making room for some non-dairy cheeses” in our cheese drawer. The weird flavor could have also been from the queso fresco and colby jack and kale and hemp milk combo… not sure… we ate it and think it is worth experimentation in the future… so that is something.
I tried it for breakfast as a beverage with the kids. I have just replaced their typical small glass of milk with rice, soy, almond and now hemp milk- and this one didn’t work at all. To me, original Hemp Dream isn’t drinkable by itself. To our oldest daughter, 5, who said, “something is wrong with the milk… it is going to make me throw up” referring to the taste AND then pointed out the hemp? chunks in the glass after she drank half of it. I tend to agree. The texture is… well… a little chunky to just drink alone. Maybe I didn’t shake it enough? Our son, 2, took a tiny sip… and while he didn’t spit it out… was done.
My wife picked this up at the local Kowalski’s Market. It was a little expensive. I know they have vanilla in addition the original flavor that we tried, but I don’t think they had that at Kowalski’s.