Falafel!!

Over the years, I've found myself going through phases of cooking. These are inspired by different things - reading books, studies or articles, learning about new places like Asian markets, obtaining new skills, ingredients or equipment and the changing seasons influencing what's available at the farmers market or on sale. Some phases are temporary while others morph into staples. Soups and salads usually come and go according to the seasons. I generally try to only use the oven in the winter/when it's cool. I've been cooking primarily vegetarian foods outside of the occasional bit of fish or turkey for at least 6 years. I love going to the farmers market and my Sunday mornings usually include a bike ride to the market to pick up fresh foods for the week.

Mediterranean patterns of eating are often recommended to people as a healthy choice. The main ingredients consist of vegetables and fruits, healthy proteins like beans and fish and healthy oils from nuts and olive oil. Without any modifications or sometimes-bizarre fake meat substitutes, many wonderful vegetarian dishes can be made using Mediterranean recipes, so it's something I've gladly adapted to my kitchen over the years. I've made all sorts of little salads and dips and used to make falafel from a box mix, but for whatever reason, falafel from scratch seemed a little out of my range of abilities. We sometimes would just pick up falafel balls from Zankou and make our own meals around them........Then!!!!

A few months ago I discovered garbanzo bean flour, which has quickly become a staple in my home. So far I've gone through at least 4 bags of it cooking only 2 different recipes with it - falafel and flat bread, but mostly falafel.

$2.17/lb @ Whole Foods and $1/lb in bulk online!

When I picked up my first bag of Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo Bean flour, I decided to try out the falafel recipe on the side of the bag (minus corriander because I don't like it.) Amazingly, I pretty much use that recipe every single time with few modifications - it's that good. I also love the recipe because outside of the fresh lemon, I have everything I need to make falafel on hand ALL of the time! The recipe is relatively quick - it does require boiling water and letting the mix sit for 10 min before cooking, but that time is easily used for other prep work. I love the bean flour since it doesn't have the weird texture that turns me off of garbanzo beans some of the time, it takes up less space, is cheaper than canned garbanzo beans/chick peas and there's no waste since I can measure out exactly what I need vs. having a discrete "can of beans" measurement and it's faster than cooking dried garbanzo beans from scratch each time.

I sometimes make a large batch of tabouli salad on the weekend, which is a good pairing for a fast meal with the falafel during the week. The falafel's also good with some pita, tahini, romaine lettuce, salad, tomatoes, tzatziki, sandwiches with grilled veggies.... essentially it's endlessly easy to incorporate it into a meal. It's also awesome since you can easily make the resulting meal accommodate a variety of food restrictions including vegetarian or vegan and gluten-free. You could also adapt the side dishes to fit your restrictions by making a vegan tzatziki with non-dairy yogurt or a gluten-free tabouli with quinoa.

Garbanzo Bean Falafel (from Bob's Red Mill with my personal modifications): serves 2 to 3 as a main dish

-1 cup garbanzo bean flour
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-1-2 tsp parsley flakes
-1/2 tsp ground cumin
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
-1/4 tsp dried diced onions
-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
-1/2 cup hot water
-2-3 tbs olive oil for frying

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and blend. Add liquids (lemon juice & hot water) to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Let the mixture rest for 10 minutes.

Heat oil in pan. Add the falafel batter by the tablespoon and flatten slightly. Fry on both sides until golden brown. Place on paper towel to drain & serve warm

falafel & tabouli - a past dinner I shall recreate tonight!

 

Spinach Yogurt Dip

I've had the Spinach Kale Yogurt dip from Trader Joe's a few times. While tasty, it was a little pricey and I had a feeling it could be made at home with more variation and more veggies. After a trip to Follow Your Heart for a delicious meal and some of their vegan mayo (the first time I've ever bought any sort of mayo!!) and some googleing, I came across this recipe where most of the work was already done for me. I took some liberties to adjust the recipe a bit. I think next time I make it, I might not add any sort of sweetner or only add a tiny bit. It was way overpowering when eating it when it was first mixed, but it mellowed out a bit after being in the fridge for a little while. You can use yogurt and mayo with whatever fat content you feel comfortable with.


Spinach Yogurt Dip (4-8 servings, depending on whether it's your meal or a snack)

~1lb of plain Greek yogurt (I used a couple of single serving cups, so I had a little less)
-3 tablespoons mayo (I used vegan Follow Your Heart mayo)
-1 tablespoon agave syrup (or less)
-1 1/2 cups chopped spinach (frozen works, just thaw it first and squeeze out the excess water)
-3 to 5 thinly cut green onions
-1/2-3/4 cup bell pepper (fresh or jarred roasted)
-3-4 carrots
-3 celery stalks
-1/2 can water chestnuts
-garlic powder or fresh crushed garlic
-1 tablespoon fresh or dried parsley
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh or dried dill
-sea salt to taste
-pepper to taste
-paprika to taste

Chop all veggies into small semi-equally sized pieces and toss to combine. Mix in yogurt and spices to taste. Taste after refrigeration and adjust spices as necessary. Serve with veggies, crackers, crusty bread or anything else that sounds good. Yum!

Vegetarian Lemon Orzo Soup

A couple of weeks ago I realized Trader Joe's carries bags of orzo, which was in the back of my mind. I wanted to try it out, but couldn't figure out a good reason. This weekend I decided to pick one up for soup. I had some extra lemons and decided that lemon orzo soup was on the menu. I didn't do research beforehand though and figured I could just use the 2% milk I had at home or powdered milk for the broth. I was pretty surprised when I finally got home and looked up the recipe and realized the milky-colored broth was actually made from a combination of eggs and lemon, as indicated by the real name for it that I hadn't heard before: avgolemono!

I did some searching around online & most of the recipes were made with chicken broth. I wanted to make it vegetarian, so I used way more veggies and spices to add flavor. Using information from these 3 recipes from: preventionrd.com, thefrugalveg.blogspot.com and closetcooking.com, I came up with a delicious, filling soup that my boyfriend and I have been savoring all week. The most complicated part of the recipe is tempering the egg and lemon mixture with the broth, but a bit of patience helps make such a delicious and flavorful soup that it's worth taking the time to do it. I also had some plain chicken tender quorn in the freezer, so I tossed a bit in to add in that chicken-y element. Between the quorn and eggs, this soup was not vegan. I'm not really sure how to get the same broth without the egg (although you could just use lemon juice instead) and you can add chicken as well as chicken or veggie broth instead of water.  I personally don't think this soup needs to be served with bread since the orzo adds a lot of carby type foods to the meal, but some people might like a bread to soak up the flavorful broth. Even after rewarmed, this soup still has a nice flavor and thickness. I will definitely be making this easy, bright & lemony flavored soup again!

Vegetarian Lemon Orzo Soup (~6 meal sized servings):

1 medium-large onion, diced
3-4 carrots,cut into half moon slices
5 celery stalks, chopped
1 cup of cut leeks (I used the frozen leeks from Trader Joe's)
5 cloves of garlic (or adjust to taste if you don't like it that much) diced or dried garlic powder to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
8 cups of water
1 cup frozen spinach or a couple of cups of fresh spinach, chopped if not baby spinach
1-2 teaspoons of tomato paste
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried oregeno, or more to taste
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried dill
2 teaspoons of dried parsley or ~1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper to taste (more salt than pepper in this recipe)
 8 oz dried orzo
juice of 2 lemons
3 eggs
toppings such as: fake chicken-y thing, real chicken & cheese

1. Prepare veggies. In a stockpot, warm the oil. Add the onion, carrot, celery & leeks to the pot and saute until onions become translucent. 
2. Add fresh garlic, if using, to pot and continue to cook for about a minute. Add the water, spinach & spices (besides parsley) to the pot. 
3. Allow the soup to simmer for a while, letting the flavor develop. If using quorn or other frozen/coldish meat things, you can add them in after at least 30 minutes & bring back to a simmer.
4. In a separate pot, cook the orzo according to directions and then add to soup. 
5. In a decent sized bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice. Once well combined, begin tempering the eggs with the simmering broth and adding to the soup once warm enough. 
6. Allow mixture to reach a simmer again, add parsley and taste. If needed, adjust seasoning, salt & pepper, but the soup should be lemony tasting and you don't want to overpower that!
7. Remove Bay leaf before serving. Eat alone or top with chicken, cheese, etc.

New Mexico Red Chile Beans

During my recent trip to New Mexico I tried the famous New Mexico green chile in a few places and definitely understood why it was so popular. I didn't go as far as to order it at every single opportunity since that included Sonic's Drive In or on Frozen Custard, but I did want to bring some New Mexico flavors home with me. I also really enjoy the connection you get with a place by eating food that comes from and grows natively and better in certain environments and New Mexico holds a special place in my heart, so I picked up some dried green and mild red chile powder and some Anasazi beans while there.  I hadn't tasted them, but the Anasazi beans caught my eye as something I hadn't seen before, so I decided to try them (If you're in Taos visiting the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, visit the guy selling beans there! He's an experienced salesman but his beans are good, so I kinda don't mind. Otherwise, you can also get them online or from Arrowhead Mills at some natural food or Whole Foods stores and in other places throughout the Southwest.) It turns out there's competing stories over whether Anasazi (or the ancient ones) really were "discovered" in a cave in the 1900's and sold as a touristy thing or were grown by Native Americans for a while. Even if they were a touristy things, they're good beans, so I can live with it! They were cultivated in the Navajo area of New Mexico/Arizona/Colorado/Utah where the plants thrive in the dry environment. Some people like them because they supposedly are less-fart inducing than other beans.

I've been sprinkling the red chile in all sorts of dishes the last few weeks (scrambled eggs, soup, veggies, mixed with cocoa powder on popcorn! Yum!) I've really been enjoying the complexity of the sweet and slightly spicy flavor. Last weekend I let myself experiment with the beans as well and although my recipe isn't based on anything in particular, they're pretty delicious. I'm not sure if anasazi beans always turn out so creamy or if they were just extra fresh, but they were by far some of the best beans I've ever tried. The recipes's vegan, but incredibly flavorful and filling. Served with guacamole on tortillas or fresh tortillas makes for a super yummy, satisfying meal. I use no canned ingredients if you're worried about additives (canned tomatoes seem to be really bad when it comes to BPA leaching) or cost (a few cans of this and that adds up! I picked up "soft" tomatoes at the farmers market that still taste fantastic if used the same day and had no pesticides used on them, for only 75 cents a lb!)

Anasazi beans are such pretty beans!

New Mexico Red Chile Beans - 3 servings for main dish, more if served as a side dish

• ~1 cup dried Anasazi beans (or pinto or whatever else you want to use, just note you might need to soak/cook longer), rinsed and picked through for rocks
• 1 large onion
• 1/2 bell pepper/anaheim chile/poblano - whatever you have on hand!
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 4 medium-large tomatoes
• few teaspoons olive oil
• bay leaf
• dried garlic powder or a few fresh garlic cloves
• dried oregeno
• salt and pepper
• couple tablespoons of New Mexico Red Chile, or to taste

-Rinse and pick through dried anasazi beans. Put them in a pot and cover with water and let them sit about 4 hours.
-Wash tomatoes and puree in blender or some other device of your choice. Add a little water if needed. I also added a sprinkle of oregano here
-Drain the beans. Add the pureed tomatoes to the beans along with at least enough water to cover all the beans with bay leaf. Allow everything to simmer and check periodically to make sure there's enough water covering everything.
-Start chopping the onion, carrot and celery
-Warm up olive oil in a pan. Once warm, sautee onion, pepper, carrot and celery until soft. Add fresh garlic towards end if using it.
-Add the sauteed veggies to the beans. By this time, the beans have probably been cooking 30 mins or so and should be getting soft if using anasazi beans. Other varieties might need to cook for a bit longer.
-Add a few teaspoons of oregeno, the red chile, dried garlic (if using), and salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning.
-Continue to allow cooking until beans are soft. They can continue cooking after that point and they will likely continue to fall apart and make a yummy sauce if the beans are fresh. I think these beans taste even better after cooling and being reheated. Yuuuum.

 

I served these beans with some guacamole (avocado, salt, lime juice mashed together) and home-fried tortilla chips (corn tortillas, cut and cooked in a very shallow layer of olive oil and then drained on a paper towel)

Yummy Kale & veggies

I've made this dish of kale and veggies probably 7 or 8 times in the last few weeks. To say the least, it's one of my favorite meals recently. It's pretty filling and a super fast recipe, especially if you cheat and clean the kale ahead of time or get the pre-washed and chopped kale from trader joe's ($2 for about 3 meals worth!)

Yummy Kale and Veggies (1 serving)

1/2 to 1 whole onion, depending on your mood
handful of mushrooms of any type you want or have
1/2 cup of frozen or fresh peas
4 cloves of garlic
a few leaves of kale or about 4 ounces of chopped kale
pepper
olive oil
soy sauce/salt
optional:
sesame seeds
sesame oil

Heat a cast iron pan. While warming, begin cutting onion (I usually just slice it into long thin slices, but do whatever you want!) Once the pan is warm, add a little bit of olive oil. After a few seconds, add the onions into the pan and stir. Begin cutting the washed mushrooms into slices of semi-uniform thickness so they cook evenly. Add to pan whenever they are cut. Let the mushrooms and onions cook for a few minutes until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms cook down. Add the peas and stir.

While that's cooking, crush garlic & prep the kale. When the veggies in the pan are almost done, add the kale and garlic. Especially if you used pre-washed kale, add a little bit of water to the pan to keep things from getting to dry. Cover the pan to let the kale steam for 30 seconds or so. Remove the cover, add a few splashes of soy sauce or salt to your taste & pepper at this time along with sesame oil if you want and stir. If I am adding sesame seeds (recommended!), I make a little hole in the middle of all the food where I drop the sesame seeds to let them toast a little.

I let everything cook for about 30-60 more seconds until it looks good to you. Stir in the sesame seeds and serve! I find this meal very filling, but if you want, you can also add in something like bread, crackers or rice. You can also easily add in cooked chicken, salmon or tofu. It's infinite recipes! In one!!! Feel free to tweak the veggies to what you have on hand or prefer! This would be good with most any type of mushrooms, spinach, red & yellow bell peppers, leeks and beans.

Cucumber Sesame Salad

Ever since Lemonade opened up near my work, we've made it a semi-regular lunch spot. Essentially they have a lot of items to select from that you pick and choose to make up a meal. I almost always go for the salads. Most are pretty simple, without too many ingredients, but they are very fresh. There's lot of citrus flavors, crunch, a variety of vegetables and no creamy ranchy-sauces. Inspired by my lunches of little piles and a variety of salads, I started doing this at home. I find the process of making salads for dinner to be relatively fast since you aren't cooking much, nice in the summer when you don't feel like turning on the stove, refreshing and a good way to highlight flavors. There are a few salads from this particular photo, but I am just going to talk about the cucumber salad today (the green & orange one on the left).



Cucumber Sesame Salad; a few servings depending on appetite and number of veggies included
Crunchy, light. versatile and a perfect snack, none of this salad has ever gone to waste in my home. All quantities are approximate and should be adjusted according to taste and the ingredients you have on hand.

3 medium Japanese cucumbers (or probably at least 6 Persian cucumbers or English cucumber with the seeds removed)
1/4 a cabbage
AND/OR
2 large carrots
sea salt
agave syrup
~2 tsps rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds (black or white)
additions: green onion, garlic powder, ginger powder, soy sauce

Peel the cucumbers and deseed it, if using English cucumbers. Cut in half or quarters length-wise. Slice the cucumber into very thin semi-circle shaped slices, pretty much as thin as you can. Toss in a large bowl with a generous amount of salt (at least a teaspoon). If using cabbage, slice leaves as thinly as possible & toss with cucumber and a little more salt. Put a plate on top of the cucumbers and cabbage and place a heavy jar filled with water, canned goods, etc. on top to press the cabbage and cucumbers. Let it sit at least 30 min, but preferably an hour or more, stirring a couple times along the way and draining water from the bowl.

Towards the end of the pressing time, warm a cast iron pan and lightly toast sesame seeds. In a small bowl, prepare the salad dressing (if you are using cucumber, carrot & cabbage, I recommend making a bit more dressing than what is described, but adjust to your tastes.) Add a few teaspoons of the rice vinegar to sesame oil. Mix in agave syrup & spices like garlic or ginger powder to taste. If adding green onions or carrots, prepare them at this time. You can use a box grater or even just a peeler to shred the carrots and just cut the green onions into rings. Drain off all of the water from the cucumbers and cabbage. Add the additional veggies and the dressing to the cucumbers, mixing well. Taste the mixture, adding soy sauce if any additional salt is needed. Serve with sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

This salad keeps in the fridge well. Just make sure to stir before serving. It will still be crunchy and flavorful after a few days!

a tiny pancake

a tiny whole wheat strawberry pancake for a tiny little friend!

While making strawberry whole wheat pancakes this weekend, I decided to make a little pancake for my little rat instead of just handing her little pieces. She immediately ran off with the pancake and ate it someplace where no one could sneak up and steal it from her.

I used the Martha Stewart pancake recipe from here. It's a pretty easy and reliable recipe. I simply replace the flour with white whole wheat flour and some ground flax seed, just because. I also ran out of buttermilk, so I used pureed strawberries for about half of the buttermilk. Also, since I'm only making breakfast for 2 at the most, I usually make a half recipe. Then again, if you have extras, they freeze really well. I served the pancakes with some sliced strawberries (and a little bit of sugar when you maybe forget to put any sweetener in the pancakes themselves. Oops.)

Vegan Lentil Soup

the leeks disintegrate after cooking for a while....

I love beans, but for a while, I just couldn't find it in myself to cook and eat lentils. Every time I cooked them, they just seemed too dry, gritty and just generally unpleasant in texture. After trying some canned vegan lentil soup from Trader Joe's and realizing that I could like lentils, I decided I needed to figure out how to make lentils work. So far, I've made this lentil soup a few times and none of it has gone to waste. I like that lentils don't require the soaking of dried beans, which makes this a more spontaneous meal & still keeps it pretty cheap (dried pulses are usually cheaper than pre-cooked canned...) They also have the bonus of less associated trash and no potential chemicals leaching from the can lining. This recipe was inspired by the ingredient list on the Trade Joe's soup, but I generally like more veggies in mine. The recipe is super flexible and you can add, remove and replace items according to what you have on hand or don't like.



Vegan Lentil Soup (~4 meal sized servings); ~2-3 hours

1 cup dry black lentils (or whatever kind you have)
3 carrots
3 stalks of celery
a few mushrooms
1 small onion
1 leek (or, if you have no leeks, use 1 large onion instead of a small one)
2 medium tomatoes (or substitute sun dried tomatoes or tomato paste)
frozen or fresh chopped spinach
tablespoon olive oil
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper
garlic/garlic powder
other desired spices like: thyme, paprika, cayanne, basil, rosemary
garnishes (I used green onions and pan-toasted croutons from stale whole wheat bread)

 Warm oil in a soup pot. As it is warming, begin chopping onion and leek. Once warm, add the onion and leek to the pot. Continue chopping items in this order, adding & stirring them in the pot as you go: carrot, celery, mushroom, tomato. Finally, dump in the lentils. Add at least 5 cups of filtered water & the bay leaf, cover and allow the pot to simmer for at least 1.5 hours. Keep stirring it every 10-15 min, making sure there is still enough liquid and adding more as necessary.

Once it simmers for 1.5 hours, check the lentils for doneness. I like them kinda mushy, so I usually keep on cooking for a while, but I'll start adding in spices at this time to desired taste. If you are adding fresh garlic, I'd recommend cooking it just until fragrant in a pan in a little oil (I've learned a key to cooking garlic is to not overcook it!) and adding it to the soup. Keep adjusting the water according to desired consistency. This is also when I usually add the spinach -add as much as you want. Keep monitoring the taste and liquid amount until things taste and smell good to you!

Remove bay leaf. If you used sundried tomatoes that couldn't be cut before adding to the soup, I fish them out now, chop them and add them back to the soup. Serve with croutons, crusty bread, green onion, cheese (vegan or not) & whatever else you want. This makes a filling meal on it's own!

a batch of soup without leeks and with more tomatoes and paprika

Veggie filled savory crepe

One day I decided I wanted to make green onion pancakes, but didn't want to wait a while for the dough to set as it probably should... I needed something faster. So using the basic savory crepe recipe from here and stuff I had in my kitchen, this is what I ended up with.

I also wanted to make the crepes into a more substantial meal, so I added sauteed veggies. What's included is what I had on hand and used. You can easily substitute some or all of the veggies. If you haven't had delicata squash, I definitely recommend it! It's harder like a winter squash and stays good for a while, but you can eat the skin, they are smaller than many other squashes and it cooks fairly quickly. You could easily substitute butternut squash or sweet potato for it.


Savory Green Onion Crepe with Sauteed Veggies (~ 3 servings)



filling
vegetable oil
1 portabella mushrooms/ handfull of mushrooms
1-2 delicata squash
1/2 onion
light flavored cheese (I used a tasty soft cheddar cheese with chives and green onions from Trader Joe's)

pancakes
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
~1 1/2 cup water
1 egg
vegetable oil
2-3 green onions, whole, and cut into small pieces

Put a small amount of oil in a pan. Wash and thinly slice mushrooms. Wash, deseed and cut the delicata squash into small moons and cut onions into moons. Put all veggies into the pan and cook until all items are soft and light golden in color.

 When the vegetables are getting close to being done, mix all pancake ingredients and cook in a warmed frying pan coated with a light layer of oil. These don't need to cook very long - just enough to get a tiny bit of color on each side.

Fill crepes with the vegetable filling and add a little bit of cheese if desired. Super delicious!

Potato, Leek & Arugula soup

Inspired by the fact that I had leeks, potatoes and arugula, I happened upon this recipe for a Potato Leek and Arugula soup at farmgirlfare. I don't like turning on my oven and try to avoid using prepackaged broth, so this is my take on her recipe. As written this is vegan, but you can add in milk products if desired, which would make it vegetarian. Choose your own adventure!



Potato, Leek and Arugula soup (~3 meal sized servings)

-2 small/1 large leek
-1 carrot
-2 stalks of celery
-1 portabella/1 handful of mushrooms of some sort
-~1 lb of potatoes
-2 cups arugula (or more, if you're in the mood for lots of greens!)
-5 cloves of garlic (adjust to taste - 5 is a decently garlicy flavor)
-salt
-pepper
-dried or fresh dill
-few tablespoons of olive oil
-a few slices of dry bread

optional:
-few teaspoons of fresh chopped parsley
-chopped chives or green onions
-cheese
-greek yogurt
-milk/non-dairy milk

Wash the leek well and chop with the carrot, celery and mushroom. Warm a tablespoon of olive oil in a soup pot and add chopped veggies until they are soft. While veggies are cooking, wash and chop potatoes into 1 inch pieces. You can peel them if you want, but it is not necessary. Once veggies are soft, add potatoes, a pinch of salt and enough water to cover all vegetables in the pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until potatoes are soft enough to stab with a fork.

When the soup is close to being done, mince the garlic and cook just until fragrant and lightly brown in a little bit of olive oil and take off the heat. Add pepper to the soup (this is really to taste... I really like this soup very peppery, but a little bit of pepper also works.)

Transfer soup to a blender or use an immersion blender. Blend soup until smooth (you can add milk/non-dairy milk in this step if you want, but it is not necessary.) Return soup to pot, add garlic into the soup and warm.

Chop the bread into 1 inch small cubes and lightly toast in the same pan as the garlic was roasted in. If there is no oil left, add a little more, otherwise just use whatever is left from cooking the garlic.

Roughly chop the arugula and add into the soup with dill. Turn off the heat and allow arugula to soften. Taste and adjust with salt, pepper, soy sauce, dill, etc.

Serve soup in bowls, garnished with croutons, chopped fresh parsley and any other toppings, such as plain Greek yogurt, chives, green onions or cheese.

Vegan, Raw taco filling

I recently finally came into possession a VitaMix... one of those things I've been looking at for years, but couldn't quite justify. Now that I have it, I'm eager to try out all sorts of things, like this raw, vegan taco "meat" filling.

Inspired by these two recipes (http://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2010/05/raw-vegan-taco-nut-meat-raw-vegan-taco.html
and
http://therawtarian.com/raw-taco-meat-recipe/ ) and the raw tacos at Sun Cafe, this is what I pulled together. I've had it as a wrap with lavish bread, lettuce and salsa, as lettuce tacos with tomatoes, salsa, green onion and avocado and also just on something like crackers. It's super tasty and flexible and the leftovers can easily be stored in the fridge and eaten at a later time.

Vegan Raw Taco Filling

-1 cup of nuts (I've use 50% almond/50% walnut and 50% sprouted sunflower seeds/25% walnut/25% almond. both were pretty good. use what you have/like)
-~10 sun dried tomato halves (mine we dried/not in oil from Whole Foods. Super good and a decent price and no sulfer dioxide, which tastes gross to me) soaked in a little bowl of warm water, enough to cover, for at least 30 min
-splash of olive oil
-soy sauce, to taste (not necessary, but adds a nice flavor component)
-desired spices. I used: cumin, dried garlic, ancho chile powder, cayenne and oregano
-salt and pepper to taste

Soak the tomatoes for at least 30 min. I also add in the oil, soy sauce and spices, but these can be added later on. Once the tomatoes are soft, add the nuts (and other stuff if you didn't add it earlier). Grind in blender or food processor with tomato soaking water until blended and at desired consistency. Some chunks are ok in this. Add extra water or oil if needed. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve in tacos, wraps, veggies, etc.

Chia pudding!

Mmmmm chia seeds. I love their little strawberry seedness, satisfying crunch, gel-shell after soaking... the interest they add to otherwise smooth foods and drinks.





This is a tasty, simple Chia Pudding dish I've made a few times:

-berries (this time I just used late season strawberries from my local farmers market, but raspberries, blueberries and blackberries work fine)
-plain greek yogurt
-chia seeds
-cacao nibs

Blend the berries with the yogurt with a blender. I didn't need to add any liquid, but you might want to add some water. Once it was a desirable consistency, stir in chia seeds to personal preference. Remember they will soak up liquid.

Put the mixture in the fridge at least for an hour, but preferably overnight. Serve in bowl and top with cacao nibs! Yum!