Kristen Suzanne's Sun-Drenched Sicilian Soup

Seeing as there are only 3 more weeks of summer left, I am determined to make as many raw soups as I can to enjoy the remaining bounty of garden-fresh produce. Not my garden, mind you. I gave up trying to have a veggie garden after 4 years of aphid-chewed crucifers, blighted tomatoes, sunburned basil, woody eggplants, and puny zucchini (hey, that sorta rhymes!) Now I enjoy the fruits of others' garden labors and save myself the agony of watering, mulching, and weeding a garden that fails me time and time again. Green thumb, I do not have. I can just imagine a little garden Yoda shaking his head at me.

As I've stated before, one of my very favorite summer foods is fresh, juicy tomatoes. I keep buying them by the bagful and they get used up in a variety of ways. Last night, I used 2 gigantic beefsteak tomatoes and some fresh basil from my Dad's garden to make Sun-Drenched Sicilian Soup from Kristen Suzanne's Easy Vegan Raw Soups.

This is my favorite kind of raw soup - just dump everything into the Vita-Mix...

And blend away! There are sun-dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, zucchini, fennel bulb (I subbed celery), EVOO, garlic, fresh basil, dried rosemary, oregano & cinnamon, sea salt & pepper, and apple cider vinegar in there. So fresh and tasty!

On the side, we enjoyed a simple spinach salad with chopped cucumbers, carrots, celery, pine nuts, chopped dates, lime juice, EVOO, and sea salt. I would have used lemon juice, but I only had fresh limes on hand.

We loved the soup! It was super thick and velvety, likely because there is no water added to the ingredients. It was full of fresh summer flavor and made a great meal on a hot night!

Summer Lovin' Curried Corn and Veggie Chowder

I've been waiting for summer to roll around so I could make the Summer Lovin' Curried Corn and Veggie Chowder from Appetite for Reduction. Unfortunately, I just got the memo that summer is here - and in fact, is almost gone. Ah well, better late than never.

This recipe is just brimming with my favorite ingredients: zucchini, carrots, curry powder, shallots, red bell pepper, ginger, coconut milk, and lime. However, the undisputed star of this dish is the fresh, sweet, just-been-picked corn that only the summer months bring. I bought 3 ears at the local farmer's market, along with my customary tomatoes, peaches, and apples. I couldn't wait to get home and get this soup simmering!

After slicing off the juicy kernels, I broke the cobs in half and added them to the pot. This simple step adds lots of extra corn-y flavor. After cooking for about 30 minutes, the soup was ready. I removed the corn cobs and used my immersion blender to blend about half the soup in the pot, giving the finished product a thick body along with some chunks of veggies.

With some thickly sliced beefsteak tomatoes and a pinch of sea salt, this was a perfect late-summer meal that was enjoyed by all!

I also used some of my farmer's market bounty to make a yummy dinner of Syrian Bread Salad (from 1,000 Vegan Recipes), Masala Baked Tempeh (from AFR), and steamed zucchini and yellow squash. This meal had such a pleasing contrast of textures and flavors, from the chewy Indian-flavored tempeh, to the juicy Middle Eastern-flavored salad, to the straight up all-American steamed garden veggies.

Finally, for movie night, we wanted to have something delicious and fun, so I made a giant salad with baby lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, and celery. I topped the salad with a mustard vinaigrette, Dr. Praeger's veggie patty, Trader Joe's roasted corn, and some Alexia sweet potato tots. It really satisfied that burger-and-fries craving in a healthy way!

What are some favorite summer dishes that you have to make again before summer ends? I think, for me, it has to be more Smoky Tomato & Jalapeno raw soup, some grilled pizza, and panzanella-style salads. I want to enjoy these flavorful tomatoes while I can!

California No-Beef Rice Yummy

I'm sure you're wondering about the strange post title. I'll explain. The other day, it was getting really close to dinner time, and I had nothing prepared. Worse yet, I didn't have a lot of stuff to work with. I was stumped. I asked my hubby if he had any ideas. While he was pondering this, I immediately had a flash of brilliance - "What if I make California Beef Rice Skillet?" His reaction? "Oooooooh, yeah!"

What is California Beef Rice Skillet, you ask?

Well, it is one of my hubby's favorite childhood meals. His Mom used to make this all the time, and it was one of the first recipes she handed down to me after we were married. I suspect California Beef Rice Skillet was a recipe that came from a magazine, but I don't know the actual source for certain. But anyway, when we were first married, I used to make this dish all the time. I wanted to give my hubby a little taste of home (we were living in Germany), and it was simple enough to make that even a cooking-challenged person like me could make it. Funnily enough, I remember buying the ground beef at the commissary on base and the meat was vacuum-sealed and sourced from Europe - this was the time of all the mad cow craziness, and beef from the US wasn't allowed to be imported. I don't know why I remember that.

So, California Beef Rice Skillet (or, as my hubby and his siblings fondly called it, California Beef Rice Yuck-it) was a dish comprised of ground beef, onion, white rice, beef bouillon, tomato, green pepper, and cheddar cheese. You cooked everything in one skillet, topped it with the cheese, and let it get all melty. It was kind of like eating a messy cheeseburger. We ate it a lot, since I didn't really know how to cook anything else.

Obviously, since I've been vegan for almost 6 years, it's been a while since I've made or even thought about California Beef Rice Skillet. But it totally popped in my head the other day. I had to dig out my old recipe notebook and find it.

Look how cute I was....

Hmmm....the wheels started a'turnin'.

What if I replaced the beef with tempeh or beans?

What if I replaced the beef bouillon with similar seasonings?

What if I used jasmine rice and Daiya cheddar cheese?

I think I'm on to something here....

Boo-yah! It was just like we remember, but without mad-cow beef. Excellent!

Even though my hubby loved it as-is, I think it would have been even better (and more authentic) with crumbled, sauteed tempeh. Next time. Because there will definitely be a next time!

Ahhh, memories!

Eat Raw, Eat Well

To me, nothing tastes better on a hot summer day than a crisp, crunchy salad and a bowl of cool, flavorful soup. I do tend to eat a high-raw diet in the summertime, only because it's what my body craves and what makes me feel the best. The problem is, I eat lots of salad and I tend to make the same few variations. I also love raw soups when they're done right, but I've only had about a 50/50 track record with them. I'm always looking for new ideas and inspiration, so I was psyched when my library got a copy of Eat Raw, Eat Well by Douglas McNish.

This book has 400 raw recipes (!!) for soups, salads, salad dressings, dips, entrees, desserts, breakfast items, snacks, and everything else you can imagine. What really drew me in was how simple and basic the recipes seemed to be...minimal ingredients, not a lot of fussy prep to be done, and not a ton of recipes requiring a dehydrator. I do have a dehydrator, by the way, but I pretty much loathe using it. It must take me 30 minutes to clean the damn thing every time I use it, so I don't use it very often. No-dehydrator-required raw recipes are always a plus in my book!

Because I love raw soups (but often strike out with them), I immediately turned to the soup chapter. The first recipe that caught my eye was the Red Pepper and Tomato Bisque, which seemed like a  perfect way to use my abundance of yellow tomatoes! It was my kind of recipe: just tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, avocado, sea salt, dried basil, water, and EVOO.

I really liked the clean, simple flavors of the soup. Nothing complicated or fancy, just straight-up delicious! I also made a big arugula salad with cucumbers, celery, and peppers, topped with the luscious Walnut Mustard Vinaigrette from Let Them Eat Vegan! New favorite salad dressing alert!!

Since the first soup turned out so well, I was definitely eager to try another one. I hit up the farmer's market for some fresh produce, including those juicy tomatoes and the two jalapenos you see at the bottom left. I had plans for these babies.

I had to try the Smoked Tomato and Jalapeno Soup. It was just calling my name.

I was intrigued that the recipe called for everything to be blended in a food processor, rather than a blender. Every other raw soup I've made has come out of the Vita-Mix. I was a little skeptical, but I decided to roll with it, and man, am I glad I did. This soup was AWESOME!! Holy moly...this might be my favorite raw soup EVER!! The flavors were so deep and complex, and the texture was thick and a little chunky. If I had used the Vita-Mix, that lovely texture would have been lost. This soup has fresh tomatoes, soaked sun-dried tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, lemon juice, hemp oil (I used EVOO), smoked paprika, cumin, chili powder, and sea salt. The smoked paprika brought this soup to another level, I swear. I am going to have to add it to other raw soups! My hubby loved this soup, too, and asked me to make it again (which I did, later that week!)

I served the soup with a big salad on the side...baby spinach, baby arugula, yellow tomatoes, celery, purple pepper, cucumber, and avocado, topped with Detox Vinaigrette from the book. I found the vinaigrette to be a little...timid in flavor. I prefer big, bold flavors for my dressings, so I wasn't that impressed. Still, I liked that it included dulse in the ingredients. I love dulse!

 Overall, this was a very satisfying meal. That soup...to die for!

I think I might need to buy this book!

Indian, Mexican, Asian, and American!

No theme today, just a roundup of some yummy foods I've eaten recently!

Indian-Spiced Lentils with Spinach and Rhubarb from Vegetarian Times, served over some brown basmati rice. I had such high hopes for this dish, but I was a little underwhelmed. You would think that a dish with rhubarb, raisins, and ginger would be exploding with flavor, but I thought this was rather bland. I think it needed some lemon juice. I also would add the raisins later in the cooking process so they maintain some of their sweetness. My hubby really liked it, though.

Clockwise, from top: Hearts of Palm and Jicama Salad from Southern Living magazine; Mexican Millet from Veganomicon; and frozen roasted corn from Trader Joe's. This plate was a pleasing melange of textures, flavors, and temperature (cold salad; hot millet; warm corn). Yumbles.

Spring Vegetable Stew with Soft Polenta from Vegetarian Times. You can't see the polenta because it's buried underneath the veggies, but trust me, it's there. I've made this recipe before and loved it, but this time I had to make a bunch of substitutions - frozen leeks instead of fresh leeks; zucchini instead of yellow squash; yellow pepper instead of mushrooms; and canned whole tomatoes instead of chopped tomatoes. It definitely tastes better when you make it according to the recipe! I also think it needs way more salt, IMHO. Still, it's pretty tasty and nutritious.

Clockwise, from top: homemade coleslaw (I tried to replicate the awesome spicy coleslaw from Sweet Tomatoes, but I missed the mark); Marinated Asian Tofu from Veganomicon; frozen broccoli; and millet. Yup, I love me some millet!

Forty-Clove Chickpeas & Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction. Mushy, garlicky goodness!

Masala Baked Tempeh from Appetite for Reduction and Purple Kale Salad with Creamy Apricot Ginger Dressing from Choosing Raw. I loved the contrast of the spicy, crusty tempeh and the soft, sweet kale salad. Great combination!

Another favorite from Choosing Raw, the Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce. This dish is a hit in my family! The creamy bean-and-mashed-sweet-potato filling rocks my socks and I love the slightly spicy tomatillo sauce. A little melted Daiya Pepperjack cheese on top doesn't hurt, either :)

Have a wonderful day!

Love for Let Them Eat Vegan!

When I first became vegan nearly 6 years ago, I did so for health reasons. I had high cholesterol, severe acid reflux, and I was at the very end of the healthy-for-your-height weight spectrum. Making the change from omnivore to vegan was actually really easy for me, as I didn't miss cheese or dairy milk the way many other new vegans do. I certainly didn't miss meat at all, since I'd never really been that fond of it anyway. 

The struggle I had was in figuring out what to eat, and more specifically, how to prepare it. I'd never had tofu or tempeh before, let alone quinoa, hemp seeds, kale, plantains, or almond butter. I spent much of my first year of veganhood making some truly awful dishes (ie. unpressed, unmarinated tofu, sliced into slabs and fried....mmmmmm). It wasn't until October of 2007 that the cookbook I really needed was published. That book was Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan, and it changed my life! Dreena Burton's recipes were uncomplicated, unfussy, and super nutritious. Most importantly, though, they were delicious! She gave suggestions on what to pair with certain recipes, and her sections on ingredients and cooking techniques were invaluable to me. I have been a big Dreena fan ever since, so naturally I was thrilled when her follow-up cookbook, Let Them Eat Vegan!, came out earlier this year. It has 200 (!!!) recipes and I plan on trying nearly all of them, just as I did for ED&BV. I've blogged about some dishes I've already made (Kale-Slaw with Curried Almond Dressing; Lemon Dijon Green Beans; Caribbean Fusion Stew; Moroccan Bean Stew with Sweet Potatoes; Tempeh Tickle), but this week I decided to go crazy with Chapter 1, Breakfast Bites and Smoothies. The first thing I made was the Wholesome Oat Snackles!, which Dreena says are like having your oatmeal without the bowl. With oats, oat flour, raisins, hemp seeds, applesauce, and maple syrup, they certainly lived up to the hype! I also included a handful of mini chocolate chips, which is listed as an optional ingredient. I don't say no to optional chocolate.

Here are the snackles before cooking:

...and here they are afterward. They were so good! Oat-y, chocolate-y, chewy, and bite-sized. I'm sold!

The next day, I tackled two recipes for breakfast cookies. Breakfast cookies. 'Nuff said.

Behold, the Monsta! Cookies. This time I was smart and pressed them down into a cookie shape.

These babies are loaded with oat flour, spelt flour, shredded coconut, flax meal, pecans, hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, and maple syrup. They are packed with healthful ingredients, and although Dreena says these are not your dessert kind of cookie, I'd have to disagree. To me, they are a breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and late-night snack kind of cookie. I should know, because I had one at each of these occasions. I had to freeze half the batch to keep us from eating them all in one day, which really made for some chewy frozen cookies when we dug them back out of the freezer the next day :)

I also made a batch of the (appropriately named) Breakfast Cookies:

I had to make a few ingredient substitutions, but I stayed pretty true to the recipe. These cookies have oats, cranberries, raisins, chocolate chips, nut butter, ground flax, and maple syrup. My son loved having cookies for breakfast, and so did I!

The next day, I made the Oat 'n' Applesauce Muffins:

I'm not a big muffin person myself, but these sounded too good to pass up. And I'm so glad I made them - they were devoured by myself, my hubby, and my son. My son ate 3 of them for breakfast! With oat flour, oat bran, quick oats, raisins, flax seed, applesauce, and maple syrup, this was something I could feel great about feeding him.

Lastly, I made a savory dish for dinner, the Fragrant Kidney Bean Lentil Dal, served over basmati rice with a side of green beans:

It has red lentils, kidney beans, ginger, orange juice, garlic, and lots of delicious spices. It was perfectly seasoned, and other than omitting the red pepper flakes, I didn't change a thing. It was sooooo good. If you love Indian food, then you should definitely make this!

I can't wait to try more of the recipes in LTEV. I haven't even gotten to the burger, pasta, cookie, cake, or ice cream chapters yet! You'll be seeing more yummy food from this cookbook in the future. Thanks, Dreena!

A Vegan Bowl, Step by Step

Hello there, chickadee. Let's get to the food, shall we? 

This is a vegan bowl featuring Caesar Chavez Dressing and Basic Baked Tempeh from Appetite for Reduction. The base of my bowl is baby spinach and steamed bulgur, which I then topped with some roasted cauliflower, grilled eggplant, grilled yellow squash, chopped celery, red onion, cucumber, and roasted red pepper. The tempeh added the "meaty" part of this dish, making this a satisfying and hearty meal.

The best part of this meal is the fact that I could work on it throughout the day. While my son was napping, I made the dressing and grilled the eggplant and yellow squash on my cast-iron griddle:

I also marinated the tempeh and threw the cauliflower in the oven to roast. Then I chopped the veggies and placed everything on a giant platter to put in the fridge until dinnertime.

After we went out for the afternoon, I came home and steamed the bulgur. It's as simple as adding dry bulgur to a bowl, adding boiling water, covering it with a plate, and letting it steam for 30 minutes. Easy peasy!

When it was finally dinnertime, all I had to do was assemble our dishes. It would have been more wearisome if I had done every step at dinnertime, but spacing it throughout the day made dinnertime prep a breeze.

If you're a stay-at-home mom like me, consider doing some of your dinner prep in stages throughout the day. I find it really helps me keep the dinnertime stress to a minimum, while also allowing plenty of time to get the meal done so we eat at the same time every day. 

Question: what are your favorite vegan bowls?

Raw Soup, Raw Soup, and More Raw Soup

I have a strange relationship with raw soups. When they are good, they are soooo good. And when they're bad, they are soooo bad. I'll never forget the raw cauliflower soup I made a couple of years ago. It was so horrible. I still have nightmares about that soup. It was also the soup that wouldn't die. It just so happened that the recipe made a huge quantity, so I was stuck with tons of this leftover vomit soup. I ended up freezing it in a large ziploc bag, and every now and again I would break off a hunk, defrost it, gag it down, and wish I had no tastebuds. (The question I ask myself now is: why? Why did I make myself keep eating this? I know you don't like to waste food, but you could have made an exception, just this once!!) Ahem. Anyway, this post is not about the cauliflower soup. 

It's about some raw soups that I love, like Gena's Raw Tortilla Soup.

I love raw soup-and-salad combos in the summer months. It made for a wonderful dinner al fresco!

This is another raw soup I enjoyed recently - Red Pepper and Tomato Bisque from Eat Raw, Eat Well:

I know, it doesn't look that attractive (at all), but it was mighty tasty, and easy to make, too. Just throw everything (red peppers, tomatoes, avocado, EVOO, seasonings) in the Vita-Mix and pulverize!

However, there was a recent raw soup fail. I couldn't manage to take a decent picture of it, which should have been my first clue. I won't say where the recipe came from, but it was supposed to be a raw curry soup. It was somewhat better the next day (as many raw soups often are), but I wouldn't make it again.

At least I didn't have to freeze any leftovers!

Salad, Salad, and More Salad

Sorry for the little hiatus. Things have been busy here at Bananas for Smoothies-ville. Well, I guess busy isn't the right word. More like, distracting. Olympics to watch? Distracting. Books to read? Distracting. The Bachelorette? Distracting. Especially Arie. I've been too distracted by life to blog much about it. But it's time to get back to business!

Mmmm, business. This is the Syrian Bread Salad from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. It's one of those chop-everything-up-and-toss-it-all-together-type salads that I just adore.

I toasted some Trader Joe's mini pitas for just a few minutes to dry them out a bit.

Then I chopped-chopped-chopped the salad stuff: cucumbers, grape tomatoes, oil-cured olives, red onion, red pepper, and parsley. I tossed in the mini pitas and added the oil and vinegar.

I served the salad atop some mixed baby greens and Basic Baked Tempeh from Appetite for Reduction. This meal was a party in my mouth: juicy, salty, chewy, carb-y, crunchy. Yeah!

This was a fun and tasty recent Saturday dinner. I made a base salad of baby greens, chopped tomatoes, avocado, red pepper, and cucumber, then topped it with a Dr. Praeger's California Veggie Burger. I whisked together a simple dijon vinaigrette and drizzled it over the burger and salad. Some frozen Alexia fries (and lots of ketchup) completed the dish. I loved having a "decadent" meal that didn't leave me with a food hangover :) By the way, I never buy frozen veggie burgers EVER (not a big fan), but I grabbed a box of these burgers on my last Trader Joe's shopping trip. I love how they are vegetable-based and taste more like a croquette!

Finally, another salad - this one is the Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Toasted Cumin Seeds. This was one of the salads I hadn't yet prepared from Appetite for Reduction, mostly because...it didn't really appeal to me. And I was right. I didn't enjoy this :( I don't know what it is about cumin seeds, but apparently I am not a fan. I use ground cumin all the time and like it, but I don't enjoy the cumin seeds. I've made other dishes in the past with cumin seeds, and I never liked the flavor it added. So, now I know. No more cumin seeds! I piled it on top of some baby spinach and had some haricot verts and TJ's roasted corn on the side. That corn rocks! Seriously, yum. I could have eaten the entire bag!

I'll try to be better about posting more often!