Acorn Season

It is the time of the year that Oak trees are dropping acorns and I have been busy gathering them.  My husband found some larger acorns last week and brought them home to show me; I like them enough that we went back and got 4 gallons more!  I cleaned and sorted them last night and will shell as many as possible today.  I am going to try a new way to leach the tannins that looks like it is much faster than what I used last year.

Vegan MOFO hash browns and sausages for dinner

Tonight is breakfast for dinner night.  Yum!  I shredded russett potatoes in the food processor, cooked them in a hot pan, added two vegan sausage patties, and waited.  So good! 

Vegan MOFO--Hash Browns For A Snack

It is Vegan Month of Food and I totally forgot until a few minutes ago!  I am so sorry everyone who visited here.

I am a big potato fan, especially hash browns.  This batch was for an afternoon snack.  I make them with freshly shredded russet potatoes and a piping hot pan--no oil.  They cook for about 7 minutes on the first side, get flipped and cooked for another 7 minutes.  Then serve and eat.  Yum!

Swedish Meatballs

This has got to be the best vegan Swedish meatball recipe I have ever tasted!  I found it here: The Seitanic Chef's Swedish Meatballs

I do not tend to cook with added oils, but I made an exception when I browned the meatballs.  I used a tablespoon of Earth Balance.  Next time I will try baking them in the oven.

I also left out the mushrooms since I wanted my children to eat this.  I also used only about 6 ounces of Tofutti Sour Cream.
I had a jar of Ikea's Lingonberry Jam in the refrigerator, so I served that with this dish.  Very tasty!

So when cooking with low-fat in mind, I will try making it this way:

--Bake the meatballs
--no sour cream substitute, but add some lemon juice for that sour taste
--in place of the soy creamer, use soy milk

I am really looking forward to the next time I have the excuse to make these!

Making Blue Corn Tortillas

Above, the ball of masa is in between two pieces of plastic wrap on the tortilla press.

Here I have taken the top piece of plastic wrap off after I pressed the ball on the press.

You can buy a tortilla press for $10-$15 online or at a South American market.

A stack of blue corn tortillas!  

These are so easy to make.  Mix masa and water 1:1, roll a small ball, put it between two sheets of plastic wrap on a tortilla press, press it, remove the plastic wrap, cook in a dry pan 1 minuter per side, stack and eat.  If you do not have a tortilla press, use a rolling pin or even just flatten it with your hands.

I like mine with beans and salsa…

You can use parchment paper if you do not want to use plastic wrap.  If plastic does not bother you, try using a cut plastic baggie since the plastic is much thicker and easier to work with.

Oatmeal Balls

I made these for a snack for my daughters and their friends. This is my recipe, though I did read about a dozen recipes online to get an idea of what kinds of proportions I needed to be looking at. This recipe made 12 and come out to about 90 calories each.


Oatmeal Balls

1.5 cups quick oats
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 teaspoons vanilla
scant 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter, after pouring off the oil
3/4 cup of dark chocolate chips, finely chopped walnuts, and raw sunflower seeds

Mix all together in a bowl, then take a small handful, squeeze into a ball, and put on a plate. 

These are very high in fat, as you can guess from the ingredients;  I would only eat one as a snack on occasion.

Boiled Potatoes

Boiled red potatoes, salt and pepper, nutritional yeast, bacos, sunflower seeds, and broccoli. 

Grapes

Yummy snack!

Green Tacos and CousCous

Dinner last night was tacos with lettuce replacing the shells.  The filling is green lentils mixed with toasted walnuts.  This looks odd, but tasted so good!  I got the recipe from oh she glows, though I did not use as many walnuts in mine.

Next to the "taco" is some couscous with barberries and kalamata olives.

Smoky Black Bean Enchiladas and Vegan Queso

Someone let me know that the Happy Herbivore’s cookbooks were on sale as a Kindle purchase for $2.99 each—so I bought the 4 that were that cheap.  

Last night I made Smoky Black Bean Enchiladas.  I have made a similar recipe in the past and really enjoyed it, but in her cookbook there was an enchilada sauce recipe.  Now I live in Texas and I know Mexican food; I make my own red and green enchilada sauces and they are wonderful, if I do say so myself. :)  So I tried the red sauce in her book and it really is good.  She uses a bit of cocoa powder in it, so it has a reminiscence of a mole, but really did taste good.  I put the leftover sauce into a Mason jar and have it for leftovers now.  

I also made a vegan Queso sauce.  This one uses cashews, as do a lot of the fake cheese sauces that I see, and as usual, it tasted too much of cashews last night; but I just put some on my leftovers and it is really good now.  I made the sauce and then dumped in a can of mild Rotel tomatoes and green chilies.  Leftovers also went into a Mason jar.

 



The smokey part of the enchiladas is from 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke, so you could use whatever kind of filling you like and just add that.  I didn’t think it would be very good, but I was so very wrong.

You can see from the top picture that I did not bother to roll out each enchilada, rather, I made it casserole style.  I am all for quick and easy!

Tomatoes and a Spicy Peanut Tofu Sandwich

 I have tomatoes!  I also have birds, which is why I picked the tomatoes a couple of days early.  I picked several in my garden today, Cherokee Purple and Black Cherry.  These are so good that I put them on my tofu sandwich.  The sandwich is the Spicy Peanut Tofu sandwich that I posted a few months ago, but instead of making my own vegan chipotle-flavored mayo, I mashed a fresh avocado with some freshly squeezed lime juice.  Then I put some tomato slices on it.  Don't forget the fresh cilantro--the flavor makes everything just pop!  Who would want meat after a sandwich like this? 

Pumpkin Barberry Scones

Pumpkin Barberry Scones.  Yum!  I got these off of this website: Whole Wheat Pumpkin Cranberry Scone Recipe  and used barberries instead of cranberries.  So very good!

My Clean Kitchen

Today I am going to talk about a clean kitchen.  I live in a tiny house that was built in 1955.  The kitchen only has about 3 linear feet of counter space!  I was cleaning in there last week and got behind the stove, something that should have been done at least a couple of times per year but has not been done for at least two years.  I know, blech.  Anyway, I wanted to try using natural cleaning products again.  The last few times I wanted to do this I bought some baking soda, diluted it in some water, and found that it did not seem to do much other than remove odors.  Now that is great, but I wanted something that would remove grease, dirt, dust, etc.  This time I looked around on the internet and came up with this recipe for a multipurpose cleaner (it is not the same as any that I found, but if you do a search you will find many that are very close to this one):

2 teaspoons liquid Castile soap (I made this by cutting off 1/3 bar of KIRK'S Original Coco Castile soap and dissolving it in a mason jar with some warm water in it)
2 teaspoons Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 teaspoon 20 Mule Team Borax
4 cups warm water

Dissolve the Borax in a bit of the warm water and microwave it to get it hot enough if necessary.  Mix all of the ingredients in a 32-ounce spray bottle, putting the Borax water in first.  Discard any extra warm water.  If you want to make it smell good, add a few drops of essential oil.  I used Orange oil and Lemon oil, about 10 drops of each.

This stuff removed all of the grease on the wall behind the stove which had been there for a long time and it did it quickly.  

Here is the other part of this:  use one of those micro-fiber cloths.  I looked online and it was expensive to buy 12 of them, over $12 plus shipping.  But I went to a local store and found 12 of the same sized cloths for $7.95.  Done!  These cloths are amazing!  My mom sent me one last year and I have used it on mirrors and windows, but it works on everything.  The package that I bought comes with three different colors of cloths, so I am going to use the orange ones for the bathrooms, the green for the kitchen, and the yellow for the rest of the house.

Weekly Lunches

This is how I get ready with food for lunches for the week.  You can see a bowl of brown jasmine rice, some Japanese yams, kale, collard greens, frozen blackberries, and a can of black beans.  In the morning I just layer what I want into a reusable container, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, maybe some nutritional yeast, and take it to work with me.

It really can be this easy to eat healthy and stay inexpensive at the same time.

The top picture is a couple of the yams in a counter-top convection oven.  These ovens are perfect for baking potatoes!  You can see in the bottom picture what it looks like when I remove the peel from the yam; I then sliced the yams and layered them on top of the bowl of brown rice.

Farley's Bowl

Boiled potato slices, pickled beets, bok choy, 

water spinach, soy curls, and blackberries.

Soy Curls In A Wrap

I finally got around to trying the soy curls that I bought last week. Wow! They are really good!

I soaked them in hot water seasoned with soy sauce, liquid smoke, garlic, onion powder, and black pepper. Then I squeezed out as much liquid as I could without scalding myself and sauteed them dry in a frying pan. I used them on a HUGE piece of lavash to make a gigantic wrap along with daikon and carrot strips, a small spread of peanut butter, and fresh cilantro.It made a wrap big enough for me and 3 of my closest friends. This picture is before I rolled it up.

Tofu-Potato Pate; Black-Eyed Pea & Barley Soup

The top picture is of a tofu-potato pate that I made over the holidays.  It is savory and so very good on crackers or toast.

The next one is what we had for dinner tonight, Black-Eyed Pea & Barley Soup. 

 We make bean soup here often.  Just throw beans, water, diced onion and garlic, veggie bouillon, carrots, celery, peeled and diced turnip, kale, or whatever you have around into a pot.  I use my pressure cooker.  Then turn on, get to pressure, cook for 30 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!