Broccoli Soup

I like this recipe because it uses a lot of broccoli so that when I buy some, I don't only use half and have this little sad piece looking at me each time I open the fridge. I harvested the last of the broccoli from the garden and used it all up for this thick soup.

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

3/4 cup raw cashews
1 tbsp raw coconut oil (the raw is less processed and has a slight coconut flavour)
1 large onion, diced
3 carrots, chopped
7 cups broccoli, chopped
Salt
Pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
6 cups water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sugar

1. Soak the cashews in enough warm water to cover them while you make the rest of the soup.

2. Heat the coconut oil on medium in a large saucepan.

3. Fry the onions until translucent (about 3 minutes) then add the carrots, ginger and cumin. Fry for 5 minutes.

4. Toss in the broccoli and fry another 5 minutes.

5. Add 5 cups of water, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

6. When the broccoli is soft, use a blender or immersion blender to make the soup as smooth as possible. It will be very thick. Blend it in batches if you are using a blender and be careful not to get burned.

7. Drain the cashews and blend until completely smooth with 1 cup of water. I used my Nutribullet.

8. Stir in the cashew cream. If the soup is still too thick, add some 'milk' to thin it to the right thickness. It will depend on your preference.

9. Stir in the lemon juice and sugar. Bring back up to a gentle boil but be careful to heat it slowly as it can stick and burn to the bottom and tends to bubble like a volcano and could burn you when it boils.

10. Taste and add more salt as needed. I find it needs a fair bit of salt.

Enjoy!






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Broccoli, Eggplant and White Bean Salad

I had eggplant and broccoli from our garden today and I wanted to find a recipe to use them both while they were fresh "off the vine". This was delicious and made enough for Corey and me for supper when eaten with a couple slices of yummy rye bread too. Very simple and very tasty.




3 tbsp olive oil
1 head broccoli, cut into flowerettes
1 eggplant, cut into 1" cubes
1.5 cups cooked white beans
4 dried figs, cut into eighths
10 black olives
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Add 1 tbsp olive oil to a cast iron frying pan. Add the eggplant and broccoli and stir to spread the oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes, stir, then cook for 5 more.

While the veggie are cooking, put the other 2 tbsp oil, vinegar and garlic into a bowl. Toss the beans into the dressing mix. Toss in the fig pieces and olives.

Once the veggies are cooked, toss them into the bowl. You can serve the salad straight away when it's hot or let it cool to room temperature or cool in the fridge. Season with more salt and pepper as needed.

We had it room temperature and it was great.


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Carrot Pulp Cake

I love my juicer. I have a Cuisenart Compact Juice Extractor and I use it fairly often, especially for carrot juice. But I am always concerned about the pulp that is left. I hate wasting it. I know people say that there is "nothing" left in the pulp of value but it is still food and I am loathe to waste it.

Today, I created about 7 cups of carrot pulp after making juice from "ugly" carrots at the market. I decided to try two ideas with the remaining pulp. One is still drying so I'll wait on sharing that with you but the other is carrot cake. I think it's yummy. Give it a try and let me know what else you do with juicing pulp please. I doubt I'll have any favourable responses from home if I try making cucumber pulp cake or something like that!

Carrot Pulp Cake

2 cups flour (I use Spelt all the time but regular is fine)
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

3.5 cups (or so) carrot pulp from juicing
3/4 cup melted coconut oil

1/2 cup carrot juice (you could use orange too)
3/4 cup apple sauce

Raisins and Walnuts as desired

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x11 cake pan or muffin tins.

In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients with a large metal spoon. Mix in the carrot pulp and coconut oil. Make sure it is really well mixed.

Mix in the carrot juice and apple sauce. Again, make sure it is all really well mixed together. Add in the raisins or walnuts. The batter will feel really heavy, more like cookie batter than cake batter.

Spread in the pan. I used my hands to level it out. Bake for 45 minutes if you are making the cake. If you are making muffins, bake for 25 minutes then check that a knife in the middle comes out clean. Let cool. This cake is really orange. Maybe the orange juice would change the colour?













Now, if you want vegan icing, this is the best recipe ever.

1/4 cup tofutti cream cheese
1/4 cup vegan mayo
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tsp lemon juice as desired

Mix the icing sugar, cream cheese, mayo and vanilla together. Add 1 tsp lemon juice then taste. Add more lemon juice as desired. Spread on cooled cake.

I cut the cake in two and layered it. There was enough icing to do this.

Keep the cake refridgerated. Because it is so moist, it will quickly become "wet" and ferment.







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Eggplant "bacon" and Cashew "cheese" Sandwiches

Well, no. It tastes nothing like bacon. But it makes a nice layer for a sandwich. And no, it's nothing like cheese either but it is a tasty spread. Together with fresh tomato and lettuce, they are quite yummy! Especially nice as all the veggies and basil came from our garden today.

I have just discovered Earth's Oven carrot buns, (earthsoven.com) made in Calgary, and they are delicious. Unfortunately, the distributor here a restaurant and the owner quadruples the cost so if ever anyone is going to Calgary or coming from Calgary, please let me know and I'll order some carrot buns for pick-up!






Eggplant Bacon

1 large eggplant sliced 1/4" thick (about 20 slices)
2 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp maple syrup (or 2 if you like it sweeter)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp chili or 1/2 tsp cayenne
3/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp liquid smoke (or increase the smoked paprika)
Black pepper to taste

Mix all the sauce ingredients together and let the eggplant slices marinate for 1 hour. Preheat your oven to 350 and place the eggplant slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silipat mat. The slices can touch but not overlap. I needed two trays for mine. Pour the remaining sauce on top of the slices.

Bake 15 minutes then switch the trays (if you have 2) and rotate them. Bake another 15 minutes. Watch they don't burn.

The slices will crisp up a bit as they cool but some will be very crispy and others will be softer. Up to you if you put the softer ones back in the oven.






Cashew Cheese

1 cup raw cashews, soaked 2 hours in water
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp miso
4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup basil

In a food processor, blend the cashews until they are well ground. Add the lemon juice, miso and salt. Continue processing and add water to get a smoother consistency. Add the tomatoes and basil and process again. Taste and add more salt as desired.

These two recipes are adapted from choosingraw.com


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Saskatoon Berry Pie

We only usually get saskatoons for one week at the farmer's market so I am always excited when I manage to find them. I first had them in a sour cream saskatoon berry pie but this pie is just a plain 'enjoy them for what they are' pie.

I don't make my own pie shells so you can make your own or buy a vegan/gluten free/vegetable shortening/lard pie shell as you desire.

2 pie shells

4 cups saskatoon berries (although you can add blueberries too)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch

Toss the berries, sugar and cornstarch in a bowl. Pour into one shell, moisten edge of shell and pinch other shell on top. Cut in 3 vents.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes then 350 for 50 minutes. Watch the edge of the pie doesn't get too brown. Cover the edges with foil if they start to look like they might burn.

Cool on a cooling rack. Enjoy!


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Grain of Your Choice Peanut Sauce Salad

I had a bowl of couscous in the fridge waiting to be used up but you could use any grain, even rice or even pasta I would imagine. The veggies are of your choice too as are the proportions. It's the dressing that makes this salad. This is what I used:

About 5 cups cooked grains
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped cucumber
1 large sweet pepper, sliced
1 cup cooked edamame
1 cup chopped cooked asparagus

Mix the salad ingredients in a large bowl with a lid.

Dressing - chop in a nutribullet or processor:
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp peanut butter
2 tsp chopped ginger
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp water
1 tsp agave syrup

Pour over the salad, put the lid on the bowl and shake well. This salad will be even better the following day after the flavours have melded but it's great freshly made too.

This is adapted from a recipe in Oh She Glows.





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Pasta and Peppers

It is currently 39 degrees according to the weather man on our balcony. I don't doubt it... It's so hot that my greedy cats haven't asked for food since 11am...












...and my poor nasturtiums on the balcony have gone from being all perky this morning to wilted and cooked this afternoon.






What a perfect time to make a cold supper. Unfortunately, the cold supper I decided to prepare required boiling and baking which are not the best activities on the hottest day of 2015 so far! Oh well, hopefully it will be yummy.

I have two bags of mini peppers and while I love them raw, I decided to roast a few. The result is delicious!

Roasted Mini Sweet Peppers





20 mini sweet peppers
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Put parchment on a baking sheet and place the peppers in a pile on the parchment. Drizzle olive oil on them and mix them around so they all glisten. Spread them out, sprinkle with salt (I used the new trendy Maldon salt flakes and proceeded to spill the container all over the counter and floor while I had oily fingers), crack black peppers over top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Take them out and eat hot or let cool but be forewarned that they will be very hot inside! When they are in the oven, they will still be all puffy but they will collapse once they start to cool.






I baked tofu at the same time as the oven was on as we needed something more than just roasted peppers! Tofu bakes for 60 minutes.

I also decided to make a pasta salad since Corey had been saying how much he was craving pasta salad and the one at IGA is certainly not vegan (or really that good in my opinion.) Why not just boil water while the oven is on??

Creamy Pasta Salad (it never makes a good photo!)





In a large bowl, mix:
4 cups cooked pasta
Celery
Peppers
Carrots
Any other raw veggies you like

In the Nutribullet or blender, blend:
1 pkg soft silken tofu (although medium or firm would be fine but not the banana flavoured kind)
3 tsp chopped fresh dill
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Pour over the pasta and veggies, mix, and put in the fridge until you eat! Pasta salad always tastes better the longer it sits. Well, not weeks but hours or a day.

And while the oven was on for the extra half hour for the tofu, I decided to make the rhubard loaf I wrote about last week except I made into muffins. They took 40 minutes to cook.

Not my proudest energy-conscious day as now the air conditioner is going full blast.

Have you tried this olive oil? It smells delicious and has a nice flavour.






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Rhubard Lemon Ginger Cake

We have an abundance of rhubarb in the garden and while I love it stewed on Coconut Bliss "icecream" (which is worth every penny it costs!), I decided to try a recipe in The Good Life free magazine. The batter is really runny but it works. I used a clay loaf pan but I think a metal one would be better. Despite a good greasing, the bottom of my cake stuck. Oh well, it's still really yummy.










Mix together:

1 cup roughly chopped rhubard
1 tbsp grated ginger
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
3/4 cup cane sugar (the recipe calls for 1 cup but I cut it down)

Add:
2 cups spelt flour (although the recipe calls for 1 3/4 cups regular flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup canola oil (the recipe calls for grapeseed oil)
1 cup water

Mix it all together really well. Pour it into a greased loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes at 375 degrees.

I added a few blueberries that were lurking in the fridge. Why not?




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Slow Cooker Brownies

Yes, these are indeed cooked in the slow cooker. We found them to be a little under-chocolatey but maybe adding a bit more cocoa will help next time. We'd certainly eat them again!

This is a double batch for a large crockpot. If you have a small crockpot for 2, make half the recipe.

I used chia seeds and water but you could also use ground flax seed. If you use chia seeds, there are little seeds in your brownies. Doesn't change the flavour, just the look.

Adapted from Vegan Slow Cooking for Two or Just You

In a medium bowl, mix:
1.5 cups flour (I used spelt)
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In a large measuring jug, mix:
4 tbsp chia seeds and 1/2 cup warm water and let sit a couple minutes until it starts to get gluey

Add to the chia mixture:
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used coconut)
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp vanilla

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well. Add chocolate chips or nuts if you want.

Spray your crockpot then pour the batter in and spread it out to be even. Put a teatowel under the lid to collect the moisture as it cooks.

Bake 45-90 minutes on high depending on your crockpot. Mine took 90 minutes. The top should be firm. Let cool and enjoy!






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