Maple Chard Salad

Salad:
2 cups chopped chard
2 Tbl. shredded carrots
2 Tbl. toasted slivered almonds
1/2 Cup fresh blueberries

Dressing:
3 Tbl. Maple Syrup
1 tsp. Balsamic Vinegar
1/8 tsp. guar gum (thickener)
pinch cayanne
1/8 tsp. paprika


This is pretty simple, but it's so fantastic with the sweet of the berries and maple syrup and the bitter of the chard. The toastiness of the almonds brings this really nice round flavor to it all.

Frozen Blueberry Treat

Inspired by Jess's sister - blueberries, chocolate and coconut


Chocolate Coconut Blueberries
This was very simple!

1. Freeze about 1 cup of blueberries in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

2. Melt about 1/3 cup chocolate chips on low until all melted. Make sure not to burn the chocolate.

3. Dip the frozen blueberries in the melted chocolate. You might only be able to coat one side and that will be enough for flavor.

4. Roll in shredded coconut.

5. Place back on the cookie sheet and refreeze.

6. Serve about 1 hour later.

Another photo can be seen here.

Corn Chowder

Corn chowder
This is easily one of my favorite recipes. I look forward to corn season each year so I can make this. It seems more complicated than it is, but this recipe is much better with the homemade broth.

4 ears of corn
2 potatoes
4 cups water
1/2 - 1 large onion
1-2 cloves garlic
1 can light coconut milk
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
teaspoon

1. Broth: Fill pot with 4 cups water. Remove skins from onions, potatoes, and garlic, put in water. Cut the kernals off the cob (like this) and place the cobs in the pot (like this). Boil until mixture is about 2 cups. (This takes about as much time as it does to prepare everything else and clean up a bit.)

2. Chop onion into bits, saute until clear and a bit browned. Set aside.

3. Chop potatoes into bite sized pieces while onion is sauting (like this). Set aside with corn and chopped garlic.

4. Strain broth. Return clean broth back to pot, add 16 oz. light coconut milk or soy milk.

5. Add sauted onions, chopped potatoes, corn, garlic, 1/2 tsp. pepper, salt/braggs, and some fresh or dry tarrgon.

6. When potatoes are almost done, turn heat down and let cool 5 min before serving.

7. Remove about 1/2 of the soup and blend unil smooth. Return to pot and mis together.

8. Pour into bowls, adding a few taraggon leaves. Dust with salt, pepper.

9. Serve.

Alterations:
Soy milk can be used for those who are sensitive to the taste of coconut or want a low fat version.
Blue potatoes makes a wonderful fun color of soup and helps brighten up this light colored soup.
Other veggies can also be added, but I prefer to highlight the simple and sweet taste of the corn.

Blueberry Madness

Jess and I went blueberry picking this last weekend and I have about 7 pounds of blueberries to go through! This is very exciting.

First up on the cooking adventures with blueberries was breakfast!


Coconut Blueberry Pancakes
Basic recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.

1 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp. Coconut extract
1 cup frozen blueberries

Mix as normal and cook as normal.

Coconut sauce:
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 handful coconut shreds
pinch of a thickener like gaur gum or some corn starch

1. Heat everything in a sauce pan on medium heat until reduced a little.
2. Pour over pancakes when ready to serve.

Pasta Salad

This pasta salad hit the spot and was worth the boiling of water on the hot day.


- 2 1/2 cups dry pasta
- One eared corn on the cob
- 1/3 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 10 baby carrots
- 12 oz. jar of marinated artichoke hearts, chopped (reserve the juice)
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 sprig fresh tarragon, chopped
- 1 sprig basil, chopped
- 1/4 cup sliced almonds, minced (optional)
- 1/4 cup dried tomatoes, chopped
- 1 Tbl. dark vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste

While the pasta is boil, chop the herbs and vegetables of your choice.
When the pasta is almost done, rinse with cold water.
Add the juice of marinated artichokes and all the other vegetables and spices to the cold pasta and mix together.
Chill and serve cold.

Is it hot where you are?

Cooking has been difficult with the heat so I've been preparing lots of raw fruits and veggies.
Adding fresh herbrs from the yard like basil, mint, and lavendar has been a nice touch to my ice water.
I also highly recoment one cucumber slice and two mint leaves, one of the most refreshing combinations yet.

Baked Ricotta

Baked Ricotta
My mom got a non-vegan version similar to this at a resturant the other night and it inspired me to make this. I am unsure if it's really called baked ricotta, but this is what I am calling it now.

1 block firm, silken tofu
3-5 cloves garlic
1/2 cup chopped basil
1 cup chopped spinach (I used frozen)
1/4 cup finely chopped soy moz.
2 Tbl. chopped sun dried tomatoes
salt and pepper

Place in a bag and let marinate over night.

I rolled them into balls, making sure to squeeze out as much liquid as I could before frying.
At first I used too much oil and they fell apart, as you can see in the picture. They stayed together much better using just a bit of oil. However, they weren't that beautiful.

Dinner is served with a salad with basil and balasic vinegar dressing and some steamed summer squash. The baked/pan fried ricotta was served on a bed of tomato sauce with some soy cheese served over it.

D-lish!

S'more Soy Cream

Frozen S'mores
I am still working on it so it's not there yet.

-Vanilla ice cream that's a little sticky from adding too much guar gum. Store bought super vanilla would probably be fine.
- Chopped chocolate chips
- Crushed ghram crackers.

Mix the chocolate chips into the vanilla soy cream. Roll into small balls and roll into the crushed ghram crackers and refreeze before serving.

Lemon-Coconut Bundt Cake

Lemon Coconut Bundt Cake
No recipe because it's for Isa and Terry's (of The Post Punk Kitchen) upcoming cook book. I just wanted to get you excited about some of the recipes.
This was such a wonderful little cake that was so moist and flavorful.

The Best Brownies Ever

Now, I know what you're thinking when some vegan claims to have made great brownies, "yeah right!" I totally understand. I worked for 6 years to find great vegan brownies. Most of them are too cakey to be real brownies. It was rather frusterating. I got to the point when I thought real brownies couldn't be made. Until I came across this recipe in livejournal.
Here is the original recipe.

Coconut Brownies
~ 1/4 tub of Earth Balance Buttery Spread, softened
~ 1 cup brown sugar
~ 1/2 cup Florida sugar
~ 4 tsp Ener-G egg replacer + 6 Tbsp water
~ 1 tsp coconut extract
~ 1 tsp baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 1/2 cup cocoa powder
~ 1 and 1/4 cups flour
~ 1 1/2 cup shredded coconut

~1/3 cup chocolate chips
~3 Tbl. soy milk.

Cream together the Earth Balance and sugars.
Add the egg replacer and extract and beat until well combined.
Add the baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and flour and beat until just combined.
Stir in the coconut.
Spread into a 9" square pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.
Let cool.
Bring the soy milk to a quick boil, add the chocolate chips and remove from heat.
Pour over and let cool for about 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Beans and Greens

Beans and Greens

1 bunch chard
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 beans (I think I used pinto beans but most any bean will do.)
1 Tbl. Braggs/soy sauce
1/4 cup Salsa

Steam the garlic. When the chard is half wilted add the garlic, beans, braggs and salsa. Mix together until hot.

This is a real quick and easy meal. It's also rather healthy with all that iron!

Grilling

Over the weekend my husband, pup and I were in Gig Harbor, Washington visiting my aunt and grandmother. Much TV was watched since both my aunt and grandmother are currently disabled. I was inspired to grill after watching some shows on the Food Network. Seeing how my aunt just got a new grill it - was perfect!

(The Food Network makes me want to get cable, but then I would never cook.)















This was actually my first time grilling on a real grill.

We had the sweetest of all onions, the juicest of all portabella mushrooms and the most beautiful zuchinni.

They were marinated in a balsamic, garlic marinade using Newman's Own Balsamic Vinegar dressing with added italian spices, and lots of garlic.
















The master griller herself.

Sporting my Food Fight shirt and flipping some veggies.















See those beautiful grill lines!? When I was a kid and meat I always had my dad put those grill lines on my dead animals because I liked the way it looked. Now I am able to get the same look.

I can't wait until we get a house and I can start grilling more. Maybe using some different woods to create different smokey flavors, just like my dad

We also grilled corn and it had the most wonderful flavor.















When we got home I tried to grill some more on our little electric George Forman grill. The lines came across but they were a bit too mushy. The electric grill didn't do all I wanted it to. But it was still great.

I made a very summery picnic meal. Some corn on the cob, cantaloupe, grilled veggies of course, and some coleslaw.

Corn season is wonderful!