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!

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!

Caribbean Fusion Stew

When scanning through Dreena Burton's new cookbook, Let Them Eat Vegan!, one of the recipes that immediately caught my eye was the Caribbean Fusion Stew. Now, I am a huge, HUGE fan of Dreena's soup and stew recipes - in fact, her Sweet Potato Lentil Stew from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan is probably my favorite recipe of all time. Her winning combinations of veggies, beans/legumes, and spices are always a hit in my household, so I was excited to try this exotically-flavored dish. I was certainly not disappointed!

This stew is brimming with vegetables, beans, and lentils, boasting vibrant flavors in a spiced coconut broth. There are red peppers, onions, plantains, red lentils, black beans, kidney beans, ginger, coconut milk, zucchini, broccoli, cilantro, and fresh lime juice here, all served atop a bed of brown basmati rice. I squeezed extra lime juice on top for some more zing!

This stew was AWESOME. I'll make it again for sure!

Tempeh Tickle, Lemon Dijon Green Beans, and Salad

I'm a huge fan of Dreena Burton and her cookbooks. I've made over 80 recipes from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, and I found her baby/toddler nutrition guide in Vive Le Vegan to be immensely helpful when starting my son on solid foods. Naturally, I was super excited when her newest cookbook, Let Them Eat Vegan, arrived in the mail recently. There are 200 recipes in this book, and there are many that I am very excited to try. However, tempeh-lover that I am, I was immediately drawn to her recipe for Tempeh Tickle:

Tempeh is marinated in white wine, tamari, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, oregano, and garlic, then pan-grilled to perfection. Look at those grill marks - yum!

To accompany the tempeh, I made another recipe from the book, Lemon Dijon Green Beans:

Fresh green beans are briefly cooked, then tossed with fresh lemon juice, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, garlic, and tarragon. They are wonderfully crisp-tender and packed with flavor, not to mention, incredibly easy to make!

Finally, I rounded out the meal with a new salad from 1000 Vegan Recipes, Baby Greens with Pear, Pecans, and Ginger Dressing.

Baby romaine, celery, toasted pecans, and diced pear are combined with a fresh dressing made with sherry vinegar, olive oil, shallot, grated ginger, agave, and assorted spices. My hubby and I both love ginger and thought this was very, very good!

This was a hearty, satisfying meal that was enjoyed by all.

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Washington, D.C.

Today we're going to take a trip to our nation's capital. Even though D.C. is only a 7-hour drive away, I'm ashamed to say that I've only been there a handful of times in my life. Let's just say I suffer from an acute case of Rhode Island-itis. This condition dictates that anything that is more than, say, 15 minutes away is "too far" (or, as we like to say, "too fah.") What do you expect from us? It only takes an hour to traverse our state. We can pretty much have all of our needs taken care of within our puny little borders. Why on Earth would we willingly drive halfway down the Eastern Seaboard? Hmmm...something to ponder.

But anyway...the last time we ventured to D.C. was in April 2009. We drove down for a few days to see the sights and visit my hubby's family.

We were very excited to visit the International Spy Museum:

But, I must admit, we were even more fascinated by the Crime Museum. We got to see the set of America's Most Wanted and shake hands with McGruff the Crime Dog. We also got to see lots of crime instruments and tools, like these:

Yeah, I know - not too exciting, but none of the other pictures came out too well :(

I think the highlight of our trip, though, was getting to visit Sticky Fingers Bakery:

I got a cupcake and a Cowvin, a vanilla cream-filled oatmeal cookie sandwich.

The cupcake was pretty good. But the Cowvin?

Ahhhh-maaaaa-zing! 

We also enjoyed lots of other yummy vegan fare: spicy empanadas at Julia's Empanadas; sandwiches and salads at Java Green; Ethiopian food at Dukem; and pizza with soy cheez at Ella's Wood Fired Pizza. We loved the melting pot of different cuisines available all throughout the city!

In honor of all the multicultural restaurants and foods we enjoyed in the city, I cooked up a pot of  delicious Moroccan Bean Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Figs, courtesy of the amazing Dreena Burton. This recipe will be in her upcoming cookbook, Let Them Eat Vegan! I can't wait to get it!

The soup is supposed to have a combination of black beans and chickpeas, but I used big fat fava beans instead. I think it worked really well, and I'll make it this way from now on. This stew was so awesome!

I can't believe MoFo is drawing to an end. I hope you've been enjoying it!