Fat Free, Dairy Free Vegan Pumpkin Bread

Do you tinker with recipes as much as I do?  There's always something that needs adjusting, no?
This very moist, cake-y pumpkin bread recipe was no different.  The original had buckets of sugar and not enough spices, so I fixed it and here you go:-)

FAT FREE DAIRY FREE VEGAN PUMPKIN BREAD

350* Oven   -     60-75minutes    -    Makes 2 loaves

Lightly oil your bread pans and set aside.

Mix together:

2 C. canned pumpkin (from 15 oz can)

1 C. unsweetened applesauce or mashed banana 

2 C. brown or cane sugar (you can use less if you wish to cut down further)

1 C. Water

Ener-G Egg Replacer for 4 eggs (or 4 flax seed meal 'eggs', i.e. 1/3C flax meal w/ 1/2C water)

Mix together:

3 1/3 C. flour

1 t baking powder

2 t baking soda

1 t nutmeg 

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t ginger

1/2 t cloves

1 t salt

Blend wet and dry well with a spatula and divide into the two oiled pans.   Sprinkle sugar or cinnamon/sugar mix on top. Bake in center of oven for about 75 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.  Let cool.  The taste is much better the second day.

Fat free means no nasty oil all over your hands and coating your precious blood vessels!  Next time I make this I think I will reduce the sugar by a full 1/2 C. and I'm sure no one will even notice.  Enjoy!

Stay Healthy - Immunity Boosting Soup - RePost

Sniffles got you down? I'm fighting the good fight against the evil cooties brought home by the kids so I thought I'd share this again:-)

This soup is like a savory smoothie. It's fast, vegan and mostly raw. If you cook cruciferous veggies (like kale) and allium veggies (like onions), the nutrients are destroyed. But if you puree them together first, they chemically bind together making a superfood, as well as keeping all nutrients in tact even when heat is applied. It's delicious and cures a cold in no time!

What You Need

2 cups kale
1 cup vegetable stock (homemade is best)
1/8 of a cup of any variety of onion (I like green onions)
1 clove of garlic
1/2 of an avocado
1 tablespoon of white miso paste
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Sea salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It

Blend all ingredients except the avocado and miso together in a food processor or blender for about five minutes until smooth and bright green. Add miso and avocado and heat through on the stove top. Or you can allow your Vitamix to heat the soup as it blends to retain live cultures in miso. Serve immediately. Variation: Add dandelion greens instead of kale when cleansing in the spring. Add half of a small cucumber and serve cold as a gazpacho in the summer.

*Recipe courtesy of Jessica at Glow Nutrition

I swiped this from my favorite naughty girls at Healthy Bitch Daily.   Now if I can get my sick-all-winter 10yr-old son to consume this.....

Cultured... Vegetables?

It's true.  Vegetables can achieve a sophisticated level of cultural savvy too; who knew?  And it just so happens they are very good for une bonne digestion, no?  Read on...

As the dog days progress every summer I get pangs of 'Grandma's ranch in Napa Vally nostalgia' and pine for her pantry busting out in home-canned peaches, cherries, home made grape juice and strawberry jam.  I romantically dabble with the idea of canning and freezing like a good little housewife of old.  

And then reality hits.

But pine no more!  I found a quick and dirty substitute - ferment (or culture, or pickle if you prefer the term) your own vegetables.  In keeping with the probiotics rage among us you've probably heard fermented foods like sauerkraut and kim chi are a good way to boost your intake of the cute little cooties that keep your belly happy, happy, happy.

 

Click here for the easy peasy directions you need to ferment away in your own kitchen.

 

I

Mine came out DELICIOUS, albeit a wee bit too salty.  I chose the vegan version without whey, just salt, and here's what I fermented -

2 garlic cloves
20 peppercorns
Chunks of:  Red Peppers, Celery and Carrots
Covered the top with leaves of Purple Cabbage
1 1/2T of sea salt - which I will reduce to 1 T in the future (too salty)

Verdict - the peppers, cabbage and celery were amazing but I found the sweet/salty combo of the carrots off putting.  Next time I will increase the fermentation time to 7 days ( I only did 5 because its very warm in our house - Houston, you know) and still try a few carrots.

Cheers to a happy digestion!

Green Goddess-y Zucchini Hummus

Most novice gardeners make the mistake of planting too much zucchini and are so SICK of zucchini everything by August they never want to plant the stuff again.  Has this ever happened to you?  Guilty!  If you need to use up some zucchini, or even not - here's a fabulous recipe I swiped from the only truly evolved, health-aware grocer here in southern Houston - Erma's - whom placed it out for sampling one day a while back.  Even my 10-yr-old son, whom won't touch hummus with a 10 foot pole, declared it delicious!  Go figure. 

 One note - in my trademark haste I neglected to "drain excess water" and ended up with a "dressing", or cold soup.  I poured some over salad the 2nd time I ate it and decided it's my new staple dressing:-)  Who needs bottled stuff w/ MSG and god-knows what other additives?  The addition of 1/2 an avocado would transform it into a spectacular raw Green Goddess-y concoction, don't you think?  Gonna try it....

Zucchini Hummus

2 chopped zucchinis
1/3 c. tahini
4Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 minced clove garlic (I used 2 - yum!)
Handful fresh parsley
1 tsp. sea salt
(optional as mentioned above - 1/2 peeled avocado)

Blend only zucchini in a high speed blender.  For hummus - drain off excess water before adding the remaining ingredients and blending again.  For dressing - omit the draining phase and blend everything at once.

Nutrition Info:  2TBS. = 1 serving
calories - 44.1
fat - 3.8gr
carbs - 1.9g
protein - 1.3g
(recipe courtesy of Carolward99 - a SparkPeople user)

Enjoy in health!

VEGAN Native American Foods Recipes!

(I'm re-posting this from an EtsyVeg post I did a few days ago...)
Do you love green chilis?  Do you know the Three Sisters of American Indian traditional foods?  If not... watch below, cook and EAT!

Corn, Squash & Beans - the 3 Sisters

The marvelous medical pioneers of health, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, has a section devoted to encouraging Indians to adopt a plant-based diet to combat their formidable diabetes numbers.  Using PCRM's Power Plate principles Chef Lois Ellen Frank, of Kiowa descent, does a marvelous demonstration on how to make No Fry bread with Three Sisters Saute and Green Chili Sauce to die for.   It's so quick and easy you can even make it on a "school night".  My kids LOVE this stuff.  Try it!

The recipes are at the bottom of the accompanying article.

Spread the love and re-blog, FB and Tweet this fabulous good stuff:-)

For all y'all gardeners - here's how you grow it from  the Sustainable North Florida website:

GivingThanks Day Recipes - Take 1

We don't have an entirely vegetarian Thanksgiving at our house, but we do come close. The carnivores revolt and we have ham or roast beef typically since Turkey isn't popular.  Not exactly traditional, but really it's about GivingTHANKS more than food, so who cares?!

I'll be making this!  Winter vegetables are the best.  I never met a squash I didn't like.  VegNews Publisher Joseph Connelly provides this one on their website:

Joe’s Roasted Winter Vegetables

Serves 6

What You Need:

2 large carrots
2 sweet potatoes
2 yams
2 parsnips
1 medium red onion, quartered
1 acorn squash
1/2 large butternut squash
12 Brussels sprouts
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh rosemary, to taste
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

What You Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse all vegetables and cut into 1/3-inch pieces** (the Brussels sprouts can be left whole). In large mixing bowl, add vegetables, garlic, oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper.
2. Place vegetables in large, flat roasting pan and bake 45 to 60 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes, until tender. Serve immediately.    

** I think I'm going to leave my veggies whole like the Shutterstock photo above - beautiful!

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DeTox - everyone's doing it

Everywhere you look there's a DeTox going on.  You're not off the hook yet; here's another:-)

Two fantastic recipes to rejuvenate your body and soul:

First, a perfect, icy cold drink to refresh your everything.  From The Karl Lagerfeld Diet book, which I adore.

Karl Lagerfeld’s Ginger Drink

1C. crushed fresh ginger

4 quartered Limes or 2 quartered Lemons*

12 Mint leaves

Sweetener (Agave or Stevia - PLEASE tell me you don't use Splenda or the other chemical  poisons!!)

Crush ginger with some water.  Steep with the limes and mint in 12 Cups of Water for 3 hours.  Strain through a sieve into a pitcher.   * Note: either fruit is delicious - try both!  But if it seems too bitter for you, just squeeze the juice into the steep instead of leaving the rinds also.  Lime gets more bitter for some reason.   Karl uses limes; I prefer the lemon version

Serve by pouring a glass ¾ full, add sweetener, taste and dilute as necessary.   Keep in ‘fridge with a few mint leaves floating on top.

Steeping in an antique Ball jar with original zinc lid

I perfume the kitchen with the squeezed-out lemons for a day

 For a cold weather version, do what the marvelous Diane von Furstenberg does and make a tea with ginger and lemon - deeeeelish.  Good for a sore throat also.

Second, a super simple Gazpacho (cold tomato soup).  It's raw, scrumptious and even good for breakfast - really!  Serve with cilantro, tortilla chips and vegan sour cream if you like.

GAZPACHO

3 lg. Tomatoes

1 Cucumber

1 Green Pepper

1 clove Garlic, chopped

12 C. Tomato Juice

½ C. White Wine Vinegar

¼ C. Lemon Juice

1 T. Mustard

Tabasco

Garnish: Cilantro, Vegan Sour Cream and/or tortilla chips

Wash, peel and chop tomatoes & cucumber.  Wash, seed and chop the pepper and place

all in a salad bowl.  Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and serve cold w/ the chopped

cilantro on top.

Kickstart - the VEGAN way:-)

Hi y'all!  I'm on day 2 of the PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program;-)  I'm already 99% vegan, but I thought this would be fun to try just because a little daily impetus helps.  Every day I get a little email with something from a celebrity like Alicia Silverstone and John Salley - yes, I'm a sucker for celebrity "inside tips".  Eating well has become numero UNO lately, even before business.
If you don't know PCRM, you should!  They have the latest breaking med news and promote the healthiest of healthy lifestyles, which is, SURPRISE!, amazing in the medical field.  Here's the kickstart link:

Daily Message - John Salley, NBA star
and... the general PCRM site: 
PCRM rocks!

Eat GREEN!  Buy GREEN!  Be WELL.
Oh, and btw: eating clean & green feels amazing.  Really.  My belly never hurts anymore and I don't feel sluggish.  Gotta love it.