Picnic in the Park

The weather has cooled down a little bit here (meaning it’s now in the 90s instead of the 110s), so Dennis and I decided to get out of the house and go for a picnic in the park.

I bought these pretty little purple potatoes from the farmers’ market, and was itching to do something with them. I chose potato salad since we were going for a picnic. I love potato salad but don’t make it often. The purple potatoes were looked like little geodes once I cut them. It almost seemed like a shame to cook them!

I added peas, chopped onion, and red bell pepper.

And then mixed in Vegenaise, mustard, salt, pepper, sesame seeds and a little dill.

I also made a quick quinoa salad with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and chickpeas. I added some olive oil, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar.

And I made a garden salad using tomatoes, carrots and olives. Most of the produce I used to make this lunch was bought at the farmers’ market.

This was such a delicious lunch, and seemed to taste even better eaten outside in the park under the sun! And of course, we need to get time out in the sun in order to get our vitamin D!

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Quinoa and Veggies

I’ve been making a lot of raw foods lately, so it’s been a while since I’ve made a quinoa stir-fry, and I figured I was over due for one. This was a quick dish for a busy week night.

I stir-fried shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, onion and garlic together in olive oil until tender, I then added kale (it’s rare that kale makes it to the cooking stage in my house, because I’ve become so addicted to kale chips!) and chickpeas. And of course, I served the veggie mix over quinoa. This meal was super fast to make – it took only about 15 or 20 minutes – and is packed with protein, vitamins and minerals. So next time you think you don’t have time to cook and are tempted to stop for fast food, stop yourself and consider making a quick stirfry with quinoa!

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Farmer’s Market Pasta

Because of the heat, I haven’t felt like cooking much lately, and I’ve felt uninspired in the kitchen. But visiting the farmer’s market on Saturday changed that! All of the beautiful produce inspired me, and I couldn’t wait to start making dishes with all of the food we brought home.

I really didn’t know what I was doing when I started cooking this dish, but I just started throwing stuff together and had faith that it would taste good. And it did! It resembled ratatouille and was quite delicious.

To make the dish, I cut up eggplant, squash, fennel and tomato, and then added garlic and onions and sautéed them in olive oil. I also added a little water and some vinegar. After the veggies started to cook down, I added half a can of white beans and a little red wine, I covered it and then let it simmer until the veggies were tender. I served the veggies over brown rice pasta and topped them with nutritional yeast and chopped olives.

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Tuptim Thai

On Saturday night, Dennis and I went out for Thai food. It seemed a shame to go out for dinner after buying so much great produce at the farmers’ market that morning, but our friend Neel stopped over in the afternoon and mentioned Thai food, which planted the seed for us to want to eat out. 
We like Tuptim Thai in Montclair. They have a separate vegetarian menu and we’ve tried just about everything on it. There’s another Thai restaurant that’s very close by, but they only have one or two vegetarian things on their menu, so Tuptim has earned our loyalty.
Unfortunately, I forgot my regular camera, so I took photos of our food with my iPhone, which doesn’t have a flash. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that the food was better than it looks here!
Dennis picked up a bottle of my favorite wine – Badger Mountain organic riesling. It’s not always easy to find, so I was quite happy when he presented the bottle to me!
We started out with spring rolls. Yes, they are greasy because they’re deep fried in oil, but since I eat healthily throughout the week, I allowed myself a spring roll.
We both had Thai salads. They were full of hard tofu and covered with peanut sauce. I really love Tuptim’s hard tofu and I like anything covered in peanut sauce!
I had sautéed broccoli and tofu. Yummy!

Dennis had pad Thai. I sort of had a hankering for pad Thai, but I wanted more veggies than this dish comes with. I was happy with my choice!

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Farmers’ Market

My local farmers’ market started last month. It’s on Saturday mornings, and unfortunately, I haven’t had any free Saturdays until this past Saturday. It’s a decent sized market, and there’s so much good produce that I feel like a kid in a candy store walking through it. I always try to buy as much food as possible there so I can support the local farmers, and so I know that my food is fresh and hasn’t traveled very far to get to me. 
When we buy produce from other areas, they have to be trucked, or even flown, to us often from great distances. Not only does that mean our produce is actually producing emissions, it means that it’s not really fresh. Often produce is sprayed with chemicals in order to keep it fresh – even if it’s been organically grown.  So not only does buying from local farmers support your local community and guarantee freshness, but chances are that less chemicals were used on your food. If you have to chose between organic or local, it’s always best to chose local.
It’s difficult to get organic certification, so chances are that local produce is organic, it’s just not certified. And I also think food from the farmer’s market tastes better than it does when I buy it at the grocery story. It’s also much prettier! I just couldn’t help but to take photos of some of the veggies I bought!
Pretty Purple Cabbage
It’s summer squash season and the farmers market had many different varieties. I had to stop myself from buying more. They all looked so good but I didn’t think I’d be able to eat them all!
This eggplant is so pretty that it looks like a sculpture.
Red spring onions. I’ve never bought these before, so I’m not sure what to do with them, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
Lettuce! I’m not sure what kind this is, but it looks so good!
Fresh fennel.
Yummy little carrots.
Lots of pretty peppers.
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Zucchini Pasta with Spinach Pesto

You know you’re a total food geek when you get excited by a new spiralizer. I accept my geekness and am okay with it. But I have to say that I really love the spiralizer that my dad gave me for my birthday!
I made zucchini noodles with marinated (raw) mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and spinach pesto. Whole Foods used to carry a premade vegan spinach pesto in the fresh pasta section, but they haven’t had it in a long time. I used to love it, so I decided to try my hand at making my own. It was very mild and worked really well with the rest of the flavors in this dish. 
Creamy Spinach Pesto
Ingredients:
4 cups spinach, tightly packed
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt
Combine all ingredients in a food processor fitted with an s-blade. Process until ingredients are chopped and just slightly chunky – do not over process.
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Raw Ice Cream

I may have mentioned the summer heat before, but if I haven’t, it’s really hot here. There’s an old saying that goes something like “When life gives you heat, make ice cream.” I may be misquoting, but thats the gist of it.  
So I made some ice cream. This is raw ice cream made with a cashew base. This is the same ice cream recipe that I used in my ice cream cake a few weeks ago. It’s pretty simple, as long as you have the proper kitchen gadgets. My kitchen is well stocked with gadgets, and use them often. 
First I soaked raw cashews for a few hours, then added them to my Vitamix blender with the rest of the recipe’s ingredients. After it was was thoroughly mixed, I put the “cream” in the fridge for a while to cool down. 

I then added the mixture to my ice cream maker. 
I mixed up some chocolate syrup to swirl into the ice cream with raw cacao powder, coconut oil and agave. I didn’t want to have to use the Vitamix again because I didn’t want to have to wash it again, so I used my immersion blender with a whisk attachment. It came out a little gritty (but still delicious), so I probably should have either used the regular blender attachment or the Vitamix. Next time. 
After about 25 minutes of churning, I swirled the chocolate and some peanut butter into the ice cream. The peanut butter isn’t raw, so technically this is no longer raw ice cream, but that’s okay with me. I let it churn about 30 seconds too long because the chocolate swirls no long looked like swirls, but it ended up looking like some sort of chocolate ice cream experiment gone wrong. That’s also okay with me, because it tasted extremely delicious. The perfect treat for a scorching hot day! 
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Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Wilted Spinach

This is another delicious recipe from Vegan Yum Yum! It’s a nice light and easy meal that’s good for a hot summer’s night – although the oven was on for half an hour. It’s made with pasta (I used rice pasta, of course), roasted cauliflower and spinach. The recipe called for either olives or sun-dried tomatoes, and I used both, because I like both. Instead of cooking the spinach, it’s mixed with the hot cauliflower and pasta to wilt it a little. I also mixed in a little bit of nutritional yeast for a little bit of a cheesy flavor. Dennis and I both really liked this meal, and we both agreed that we’d like some chickpeas added to the dish next time.

Most of the time, white foods should be avoided, but cauliflower is an exception to the rule. Cauliflower is in the cruciferous veggie family and is very similar to broccoli in structure. Cruciferous veggies are twice as powerful as other vegetables and are packed with anti-cancer properties. Cauliflower has a very high nutrient density and is full of folate, Vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and even protein.

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Tofu Scramble

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been adding small amounts of things like soy and corn back into my diet. I’ve occasionally had a little bit of wheat here and there too, although I think wheat and gluten are going to be permanently off my menu. I have been feeling a little sluggish over the past two weeks, and I suspect that my diet has something to do with it. I’ve eaten out quite a bit lately, and I haven’t had very much raw food. Plus it’s been hot. Really really hot. And I don’t function well in hot weather. This week is going to be spent getting back on track and making more light and raw meals. And spending a little more time inside in the air conditioning. 
In the meantime I’m sharing one of my favorite weekend breakfast meals with you. It’s scrambled tofu and although it doesn’t fit in the “light and raw meal” category, it’s really delicious and packed with protein. I don’t have a particular recipe – I just tend to throw stuff together, and it always comes out tasting great. I block a package of tofu by wrapping it in a kitchen towel and putting it in the fridge the night before. If you forget to that, you can also block tofu by pressing it between two heavy plates for a few minutes and let the water drain off it. I then break the block up into little pieces and add it to a pan with olive oil, apple cider vinegar and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. I also add a little tumeric and some nutritional yeast. I mix it so that the tofu is throughly coated and cook it for a bit until the tofu starts to brown a little. I then add chopped peppers, onions and mushrooms, and anything else I have in the fridge that I think might taste good in the mix. After everything is thoroughly cooked, I add some greens (in this case it was kale) to the pan and cook for a minute or two longer. The scramble is really good with a little soy sausage and vegan cheese too.
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Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles

My friend’ Val’s birthday is later this week. (Early happy birthday, Val!) I went into the local bookstore to buy her a gift, and ended up walking out with a copy of Vegan Yum Yum for myself. It’s full of really nice color photos and everything looks so good that I just couldn’t help myself. My friend Barb was with me and she said the book was food porn.


The first meal I made from it was Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles. The dish is comprised of spaghetti and shredded cabbage, carrots and broccoli with a tahini sauce. I used rice pasta spaghetti instead of wheat, of course, and I doubled the tahini sauce recipe. I think this would probably work really well with raw zucchini pasta too. This dish was so good that Dennis said he wishes a restaurant near his office made it so he could have it for lunch every day. Yum Yum indeed!

If you’re not familiar with tahini, you should be! Tahini is a paste made from hulled sesame seeds. It’s one of the main ingredients in hummus, and is often served with falafels. It’s good as a salad dressing when mixed with a little water and lemon juice. Tahini is high in many vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, thiamine, folate and even protein. And it’s delicious!

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Dr. Fuhrman