Hello Sunshine! Hello GF Pasta Alfredo!

It's a beautful day out I hope everyone is enjoying it!

Here is a new photo of our California Poppys and Sweet Peas in our backyard. The poppys just recede and grow wild while the sweet peas I have planted years ago and keep coming up year after year.  I love sweetpeas, they smell so good!  What is your favorite spring flower?

Before I head back outside a quick post about a yummy GF pasta dish I made recently.

This recipe is taken from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Chloe Coscarelli, Fettucine Alfredo w/Shitake Mushrooms, Kale and Sun-dried Tomatoes.  The sauce is a base of homemade almond milk that is so easy to make.  You suppose you could try to use use storebought almond milk.  If you do let me know how it worked.  The recipe is below and the only I subbed is using the gf pasta, and I had baby bella mushrooms because I had them in the fridge.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Shiitake Mushrooms, Kale, and Sun-dried Tomatoes

From Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli
•1 pound fettuccine noodles
•2 tablespoons olive oil
•Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
•1 bunch kale, stems removed and chopped
•6 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced
•6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped

•Almond Alfredo Sauce, recipe follows

•1/4 bunch freshly parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped

ALMOND ALFREDO SAUCE:
•1 cup raw almonds
•4 cups water, plus 2 cups water
•1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
•2 tablespoons olive oil
•Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
•3 cloves garlic, minced
•1 teaspoon mellow white miso paste

Directions:
Cook the fettuccine according to the package directions.

In a large skillet, saute mushrooms in olive oil over medium-high heat. Season with salt and pepper and cook until they are soft and lightly browned.

Blanch and shock the kale so that it stays bright green. To do this, add the chopped kale into a pot of boiling salted water and stir for 15 seconds. Immediately drain and plunge the kale into ice water. Let it chill, then drain again.

Toss the fettuccine with the mushrooms, kale, sun-dried tomatoes, and Almond Alfredo Sauce. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve hot.

For Almond Alfredo Sauce:
Heat about 4 cups water in a medium saucepot until boiling. Add the almonds to the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Drain the almonds, and with your fingers, peel the almonds and discard the skins.

In a large skillet, saute the onions with oil, salt, and pepper until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and let cook a few more minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Blend the skinless boiled almonds with 2 cups water until smooth, then strain through a colander lined with cheesecloth (a paper towel also works) set over a bowl or use a fine mesh sieve. Discard the solids. Return the almond milk to the blender and process with the onion mixture and miso. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Before use, heat the sauce over a very low flame until hot.

Until next time take time to stop and smell the flowers!

Celebrate it's Earth Day! Strawberry Chocolate Scones & Beetballs

Happy Earth Day! 

 Remember to celebrate our earth every day because we only have one.

Beetballs!  Can you get more earthy than this?

These incredible beetballs were found at Fat Free Vegan where you can find the recipe.

You don't have to be a beet lover to like these.  I was hesitant to try this recipe but once I added all of the   spices....I was shocked at how good these were.  I served them up with pasta and marinara. The next day they were added to a wrap.

Strawberry Chocolate Chip Scones.
These are as delicious as they look.
I wish I could take credit for the scone recipe because it is so good but I can't.  I found it last year on line on a blog called Vegan Bicyclinguist.  The scones are moist, unlike most scones, which make these so much better.  It's a great basic scone recipe to use and then you can change up what you would like to add to it.  I used spelt and then I left out the lemon zest for this recipe.

Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day!

Potato Leek Spinach Soup and a new GF Snack!

We've had so many issues with this laptop.  We need to send it in again for repair.  While it is somewhat working here we go!

            Happy Friday the 13th!

We woke up early this morning with very loud thunder and lots of lightening.  Our Ace dog came running in and jumped on our bed.  He's a big baby.  It's not even going to reach 60degrees out and it's April!  Oh well we need all the rain we can get.

There was a new GF snack on sale at our health food store so I thought we would give it a try.

Have any of you seen or tried Bhuja snack mixes before?  They are gluten free. These are quite good and have a multi grain noodles, crunchy chickpeas, green peas and peanuts in them.  I just wish the sodium was a bit lower but I can see these sprinkled on a salad or even mixed in with other gf crackers and pretzels.  These would be great to have out at a party.  Looking forward to trying some of the other mixes.

During a break in the rain on Wednesday I hit up the Farmers Market with a friend and bought some beautiful leeks and spinach to make this yummy Potato Leek Spinach Soup.  I don't usually make pureed soups but I've had pototo leek soup on my mind and I thought it would be nice to make it a bit healthier with some spinach.  Talk about an easy soup to make!  It can also be left chunky and just add the spinach at the end.

Potato Leek Spinach Soup
serves 4

INGREDIENTS:
1 T. extra virgin olive oil or water/vegetable broth
3 leeks, white and light green parts washed and sliced
1 large yellow onion(1 1/2 C.), chopped
4 cloves garlic,finely chopped or minced
3 large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cubed
5 cups vegetable stock
2 C. fresh spinach
1-2 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
sea salt to taste

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the oil or water/vegetable broth.

2. Add the leeks and onion.  I like to cover the pot with a lid for about 5-10min. which helps the onions soften quicker and also helps so the onions don't stick if only using water/broth.  Just check every couple of minutes and stir.

3. Add the garlic and stir well. Cook for 1 minute more.

4. Add the potatoes and vegetable stock, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

5.  Add in the rosemary and spinach for about a minute.

5. Remove the soup from the heat and use an immersion blender or if using a blender add a cup or so at a time. Blend until smooth.  Pour smooth soup back into the pot until just heated through.

The rosemary adds such a nice flavor to this soup.

Serve with grilled vegan cheese sandwich or baguette.

Enjoy!

Weekend wrap up!

Happy Monday!

It was a cozy weekend inside due to the cold weather, rain and hail.  Oh and there is snow on our mountains!  It's about time.

Keaton had a friend sleepover and instead of making pancakes for breakfast as usual I made them some coffee cake, fresh cut pineapple and cocoa.

The coffee cake is from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.  I used a small 6 inch springform pan.

Yum!

St. Patricks Day Dinner this year was

Irish Stew.

Irish Stew

 Ingredients:
- 1T. Olive Oil
- 1 1/2 C. yellow or white onion,chopped
-  4 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
-  1 8oz. pkg West Soy Seitan*
- 1 T. cornstarch
- 1 12 oz. lager
- 1/2 C. red wine
- 4 lg carrots, chopped
- 5 yukon gold potatoes, chopped
- 1 T.thyme
- 1tsp fresh sage finely chopped or 1tsp dried.
- 2 bay leaves
-1 tsp. steak seasoning(this was in our pantry and I think added a nice flavor)
-2 tsp. vegan worcestershire sauce
-1 cube of low sodium vegetable bouillon or 2 C. veg broth
-water


1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute onions once soft add garlic for 1 more min. Add seitan and fry until it starts to brown.  Next sprinkle 1T. cornstarch and incorporate in.


2. Add lager and wine to the pot and cook uncovered, until liquid reduces a bit.

3. Add carrots, potatoes, spices, worcestershire sauce, 1 cube veggie bouillon(vegetable broth) and enough water to almost cover everything. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to bubbling, cover, and simmer for at least 45mins, until veggies are soft. 

*Great Northern or cannelini beans would be a great replacement for the seitan as well as tempeh.  I didn't care much for the West Soy Seitan and would rather of used my own.

Irish Soda Bread which is so easy and quick to make.  It actually turned out great!  My son even said to me "you  made this?"  I guess he thought I had bought it.

*Just a quick note about the recipe.  I actually cut the recipe in half and only used spelt flour. 

Irish Soda Bread

Recipe by Vegan Dad (check out his blog)

INGREDIENTS

 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
 1 tsp salt
 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
 2 tsp cream of tartar
 1 tsp sugar
 2 tbsp margarine
 1 1/2 cups soy milk
 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice


METHOD

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

1. Whisk flours, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sugar together. Rub margarine into the flour until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. In a separate bowl, whisk soy milk and lemon juice together. Add to dry ingredients and mix together into a soft dough.

2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead until smooth. Shape into a circle about 2 inches thick. Dust with extra flour and transfer to the baking sheet. Mark a cross in the top with the handle of a wooden spoon.

3. Bake for 40 mins, or until risen and firm.

Blog to you soon!

Creme Brulee #1

Howdy everyone! I've been slacking on my blogging...but no more of that!  As long as my computer doesn't act up like it has the last couple times I've tried to blog.  errrr!



My first organic chard grown in a big terra cotta pot!

 I'm on a quest to find the perfect vegan creme brulee recipe with the help/input of my husband Dave. He loves creme brulee where as I've never tried.it.  I was given the ramekins and torch as a Christmas gift from my son.  I guess he was trying to tell me something because I've been saying I was going to be  doing this for quite sometime.

So recipe #1 was found at Vegan Good Eats. 

Sugar is sprinkled on top of the custard.

Then the chef's torch comes out!  We all had turns using the torch.  It was fun.

The verdict according to Dave.  While this tasted good it didn't taste like creme brulee.  From what he is saying it sounds like Creme Brulee is more custard(egg)like, a bit thicker and with vanilla bean.  We kind of thought it tasted like flan but way better.   

Onto the next recipe!

Enjoy your night!

Breaking news.....

                                                               ***UPDATE*** 
My friend Bob is on the road to recovery, thankfully.   I've passed along some info. for him regarding eating a plant based diet and heart disease.  I do hope he looks into it for him and his family.
                                                                        ***

I wanted to share with you my first attempt at making Creme Brulee but something came up this morning that I felt I needed to share.

This morning opening up facebook I see a post from an old friend saying he had a heart attack.  Tomorrow he is having open heart surgery, he's 43yrs old.  He has a wife and a young son.  In the first post he says
" People, take my example and try to be healthy early on. It'll come back to bite you if you don't."  I think that says it all.

This is a tragic story that just shouldn't be happening to anyone.  It breaks my heart because heart disease is affecting more and more younger people.   I can't imagine how Bob's wife feels. My reaction when I read this post...I cried.  It made me think about the close family members and friends that I see who aren't taking care of themselves.  Some have heard or read or have seen movies on how choosing the right foods to eat has a huge impact on our health yet they go about eating as usual. It's stories such as Bob's that I want to pass along to others so they can take a look at what they are doing to themselves and the effect that has on their family. 

Take your health into your own hands right now!  Here are some movies and books to check out:
Forks Over Knives, Food Matters, Dr. Joel Fuhrman "Eat to Live", Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease,
Dr. T. Colin Campbell.  These websites will  link you to many other books, movies and info. about how to make better food choices to be healthy. 


"Let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be food" - Hippocrates

Flax Milk?

This post has a bit of this and that. 

 I'll start off with the other day when I was visiting another blog, Vegan Crunk, she did a review on Good Karma Flax Milk.  I couldn't wait to try it.  That afternoon I went down to our local health food store and low and behold....

Good Karma Flax Milk was sitting right there along with the other non-dairy milks. 

Does this taste like flax?  At first sip it doesn't have much flavor but then you get a very suble taste of flax, very subtle.  It has more flavor than rice milk, just thought I'd mention that.  There is 1200mg of Omega-3 per serving.  Thats huge!

Another great non-dairy milk to add to our rotation.

For lunch yesterday I had a chopped romaine salad, with tomatoes, brocolli, carrots, radish, green onion, sesame seeds and a  homemade ginger dressing.  This is a great dressing and tastes like the one they use at a Japenese restaurant.  I filled 1/2 C. with 1/3 of canola oil and the rest water.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hazelnuts and Arugula

My mother in law had a recipe that I made for Thanksgiving(I know it's January).  I'm not sure where she got the recipe from but it turned out great!  I love the addition of the hazelnuts.  I can't wait to have company over to make it again and it looks so pretty. 



Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Hazelnuts and Arugula

3 or 4 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges(I used white and orange sweet potatoes)

2 Tbsp. Olive oil

1/2tsp salt or to taste

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/4 C. hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

2 C. arugula

balsamic syrup(thick balsamic) -the recipe called for 2-3 T. apple cider vinegar

Heat oven to 400F.  Peel and cut potato wedges then put onto baking sheet and toss with olive oil and salt.

Roast for about 20 min., then turn over and roast for 20 more minutes or so until golden brown.  Open  oven and mix in the chopped garlic and hazelnuts.  Roast for another 5min.

Take out of oven, plate in on a serving plate and top with arugula and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.