Vegan Breakfast Crepes

Vegan Breakfast Crepes

Crepe

3/4 cup garbanzo flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour (or lighter flour of choice)

2 tablespoons of oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk all ingredients together. Let stand for 20 or so minutes in a covered bowl. Heat skillet on medium. Lightly coat with oil, and put 1/4-1/2 cup of batter (depending on skillet size) on the pan at a time. Roll the batter around until a very thin crepe is formed. Let it cook until underside is brown and top layer is cooked through. Can flip or serve as is. Top with topping of your choice.

Batter can be refrigerated overnight for later use. After that the consistency changes and the end result is not as good.

Filling

1 chopped apple (I used half green and half red)

1 chopped persimmon

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup dried dates

cinnamon to taste

garam masala (optional)

1/4 cup wheat germ (for the zinc)

Put apple and persimmon in sauce pan with a few tablespoons of water and cook on medium for 10 minutes. Turn down to simmer and add remaining ingredients. Simmer for a few more minutes.

My filling was nothing to write home about but I included it anyway. Enjoy!

Rajma with Socca and Roasted Fennel

"Yum" said the omnivore and the vegan in unison.

Indian Spiced Kidney Beans (Rajma)

Mediterranean Socca

Roasted Fennel

Saffron Rice*

Spinach and Romaine Salad**

My comments: Sounds complex, but was very easy. These dishes complimented each other surprisingly well. The omni declared that it was "very flavorful", and said that I must have worked really hard on this meal (I didn't--about an hour in the kitchen, not including clean up--but I let him think I did!). I normally don't like fennel, but this was delicious and complimented the other components of the meal.

*Saffron Rice: Leftover rice reheated with a little bit of saffron-infused water. Just a few threads of saffron made a statement.

**Salad: Spinach, romaine, sunflower seeds, cranberries, and a diced pear, tossed with olive oil, balsamic, a tablespoon of nutritional yeast and a teaspoon of wasabi powder.

CSA box contribution to this meal: spinach, romaine, pear, and fennel! What a treat!

Exercise

"We like to be alive, too! And look! We're cute!"

Welcome to Day 1 of Vegan MoFo IV (which is really just a better-than-usual excuse for me to blog every day).

I came across this article today which basically states that exercise (14 minutes a day or 42 minutes over a three day period) can inhibit chromosomal aging (damage to the ends of chromosomes, called the telomeres) due to stress. My interpretation? The more stressed I am, the more I need exercise.

The article specified that not just any exercise counts. It has to be heart-pumping, sweat-inducing exercise. And that exercise not only protects the telomeres, but actually helps the body produce telomere-protective enzyme.

What does this have to do with being vegan? Have you ever noticed that when you exercise, something internal gets reset? I crave very specific foods after I exercise. Before I became vegan, I would crave eggs and sugar. Now, I start craving kale and spinach smoothies and tofu. I think exercise resets my cravings to what my body needs, rather than what my mind wants.

If you're like me, you identify more with these guys and would rather nap under a heat lamp than exercise!

So what am I going to do about it? Probably nothing this morning, since my sinus infection seems to have come back and running out in the cold probably isn't the best idea (even though the article also suggests that exercise helps to strengthen the immune system), but maybe I'll get in front of the TV and put on the exercise channel later, and then dig into my CSA box for some greens.

***

2 hours later

I did it! I spent twenty minutes sweating in front of the Exercise TV channel doing kickboxing! Two minutes in I felt like giving up, but once I got over the hump, it was a good feeling to get the endorphins going.

Vegan Enchiladas

These enchiladas sure were delicious, but no photos (sorry--lazy!). These flavorful enchiladas broke the boundaries of my usual bland cooking. These could be filled with many things, but I used veggies from my CSA box and stuff I found in the fridge.

Since I don't have photos of my yummy food, I'll post my yummy dogs instead.

Vegan Vegetable and Black Bean Enchiladas

Rating: 5 stars

Omnivore's opinion: He ate waaaay too much ; )

Filling:

Saute onions, carrots, unpeeled potatoes, yellow beets. Cover with vegetable stock and add salt and a can of black beans (drained and rinsed). Cook uncovered until the stock cooks down, and then cover until stock is absorbed and potato is soft.

Wraps:

Spelt Flour Tortillas

Enchilada Sauce:

Make a roux over medium heat out of flour and vegetable stock. Add chili powder until the color is darkish red. Stir until smooth. Add some garlic powder (a teaspoon or so) and salt. Add small scoops of tomato paste until the flavor and color seem right. A dash of rice vinegar or lemon juice adds a nice zing.

Not-Cheese:

Hummus, a whopping amount of nutritional yeast, and a few cilantro leaves with water to process, lightly drizzled on top of everything.

Sides:

Rice

Braised baby bok choy

Enjoy!

This Week's Recap

I've disappeared into the non-cyber world due to a really, really busy week. Had to plan our preschoolers' Halloween Party (it was super fun!) plus get ready to go out of town this weekend (aaah, a women's retreat where all the cooking and cleaning is done for us--I can't believe I won't be washing another dish until Sunday night).

I did come across this article on saffron (however, I usually take these things with a grain of sat). Summary: There was a study in which the women who took saffron capsules snacked 50% less by the end of the study than the women who took placebos, likely due to the stress-inhibiting component of saffron. Makes sense why so many Indian snacks have saffron.

I can't wait to make these dehydrated (I'll use my oven) multi-seed crackers, or some variation of them. They look so easy and filling and use flax seed as the binder. She also posted Homemade Pumpkin Spice Lattes earlier this week which I am also excited to try, just because of the pumpkin in the latte!

I heard an interview with Mark Bittman the other day on NPR and got a really good idea--vegan BLT's. Of course, if you are me, you like to splurge on fried, veggie bacon (I know, I know). They turned out really good, and are a nice compromise for the omnivore-vegan divide. Tristan loved them : ) I think this guy may be a good resource for Tristan, who is still 99% vegan (he had to get cheese on his burrito the other day!). Bittman is all about increasing plant-food intake for health, much like Tristan. For me it's about animal cruelty and the horrifying ways that we raise our animal products. I'm sure that for some people animal protein is healthy. Not this vegan, though.

Can't wait to catch up on my rss feeds and see what everyone has been blogging about this week!

Vegan Neatball Dinner, OMG He Made Me Dinner & ACV for my cold

I took a good meatball recipe and made it better.

That photo is leftovers (ie. tomorrow's lunch) from tonight's dinner. It contains:

Vegan "Meatballs", but let's call them "Neatballs"

This Garbanzo Spread from Ali at Vegan Epicurean

Brown Rice Fusilli Pasta w/store bought pasta sauce

Chopped Steamed Spinach

Toasted Pine Nuts

The Neatballs:

I will try to remember the ingredients

In a large bowl, I mixed:

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 1/2 cups cooked french lentils

1/4 cup tomato paste (I found some sold in a glass jar! Yippee!)

Dry mixture (1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup wheat germ, 1/4 cup toasted brown rice flour, 1/4 teaspoon italian seasoning mix, 3/4 cup nutritional yeast, 5 grinds of black pepper, a shake or so of garlic powder)

Sauteed mixture (onions and garlic, to your liking...I browned the onions and barely cooked the garlic)

Bragg's Liquid Aminos or salt to taste (added at the very end)

Water to make a nice sticky consistency

Scoop into balls (I used an ice cream scoop). Bake on lightly oiled baking tray (I used glass) for 20-25 minutes on 375. Optional: halfway through the baking, brush BBQ sauce (but warning...it has sugar).

The texture was nice, they didn't fall apart. The perfect "bite" was a little bit of everything on the fork.

Warning: My mouth still tastes of garlic. I used three cloves in the garbanzo spread and 3 or 4 in the meatballs. To be honest, I probably could have left the garlic out of the neatballs altogether.

OMG He Made Me Dinner

So my omnivore is still a vegan. At this point, I don't know what his hold up about eating meat is. However, while I was making dinner tonight, he went out and did yard work (after a whole day of work!), and then came in and literally started doing push-ups and sit-ups. I guess the toxins have passed and he's in vegan euphoria.

So this is what he made on Saturday night, probably because I've been so sick that I've not been cooking.

Spanish rice

Pinto beans

Fresh heirloom tomatoes

Guacamole

Store-bought whole wheat tortillas

The whole meal was very good. I was impressed. I don't know where he got the recipes except that they were online.

Apple Cider Vinegar

I've had a rough past few days. I had the beginning of a cold, so I got some extra rest and it started to go away. Then I worked too hard for too long and my cold just went berserk. Green mucous, coughing, a lot of irritation in the sinuses, eyes, ears, and throat, and even got a little feverish yesterday.

This morning I woke up and drank a glass of water with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mixed in (ugh...I actually only drank half of it), and within thirty minutes, my mucous turned clear and I had energy. Not a lot of energy, and my nose was still runny, but what an improvement from yesterday, where I spent the entire day in bed.

I'm going to try it again tomorrow to try to kick this thing. I'm only about 50% restored at this point.

Papaya Salad

I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this idea. It was on someone's blog, I believe. All I remember is that someone was in Thailand and found a restaurant attached to a health spa or something that served all raw food. And this was a fave on the menu for that person. For lack of a better term, I'm calling it a salad. But for me it's lunch.

Papaya Salad

Ingredients:

Papaya

Salsa fresca

Avocado slices or guacamole

Stack, and enjoy!

The irony: it's cold, wet, and rainy here, and I have a cold. I should be eating hot soup!