Orangeade

Summer tiiiiime and the livin' is easy!!

I was working at the co-op this afternoon and a woman was buying a huge bag of lemons. She commented that she and her daughter are hooked on homemade lemonade. I thought "mmm.. lemonade" then I thought "MMMM... ORANGEADE!!"

My grandma used to make Orangeade, and when my Mom was a kid one of her jobs was making the orangeade. My mom used to make it for us when we were kids, maybe once or twice a summer because honestly, squeezing all that fruit is a bit of a hassle! She had an old fashioned metal citrus press and you'd have to put all your weight on it (we were kids, remember?) to press the juice out. Sure, mixing storebought orange juice with lemon juice would be faster, but it wouldn't be the same!

I don't really know my grandma's recipe. If I asked my Mom, she might have an idea of the proportions, but my Mom is in Italy right now, and incommunicado, so I winged it. The end result is delicious, though much lighter and more refreshing than my Grandma (and Mom's) Orangeade. The reason being that my Grandma's secret ingredient, we joke, was sugar. It's only sort of a joke, she put sugar in everything. The reason I'd only ever eat my Grandma's potatoes and carrots as a kid? She cooked them in sugar, not even kidding. So I think that if you doubled the amount of sugar I used, you'd get about what my grandma made... except Grandma didn't make simple syrup, your Orangeade was just gritty until the sugar dissolved. Try it with one cup of sugar -- or double it if you like things really sweet!!

This recipe is 2 weight watchers points plus per 8 oz cup. (For comparison, for those of you not playing this game, 8oz of plain old orange juice is 3 points)




Orangeade
1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice (about 6 oranges)
1 cup of sugar, mixed with 1 cup of water and heated in a small pot until dissolved ("simple syrup")
10 cups water

1. Mix everything together.

2. Pour over ice. Drink.

3. Wow this is an easy recipe!

Jicama Slaw

*Yawn* <----STRETCH----> Spring already is it?


Hmm.. seedlings... must be spring!

It was a long snowy winter during which I started a new job THANK GOD! My life is so much better now, what without having to drive all over the county (with gas at $4/gallon, tyvm) and not coming home reeking of cigarettes and cat urine. Yes, my new research job is paradise in comparison. But alas, the blog did fall to the wayside. I'm going to try to do better!

Big change in our house as of late -- the boy joined weight watchers. As such, I am now calculating the points value of everything I make. This is a bit tedious at times, but I figured since I've already done the work, I'll include the points value for anyone else who may be weight watching. And, for the record, the boy has lost 5% of his body weight in the past month! (I've also lost 3 lbs, though I'm not even doing weight watchers!)

One change I've made is that I'm just making a metric ton more vegetables for dinner every night. Instead of having a starchy side and a veggie side, we have 2 veggie sides. Instead of having pasta for an entree, we have pasta with a side of extra protein or vegetables. This recipe I invented randomly thinking about how much I enjoy jicama. I thought "Now wouldn't that make a lovely slaw?" and damn it does! I combined Jicama, Apples, Carrots and Cabbage for a delicious side dish that I've been eating every day since I made it! (I'm glad it's good, because this recipe made a LOT of slaw!)

The other big change in my house, kitchen in particular, is my CUISINART FOOD PROCESSOR!! The boy bought it for me for Christmas! That made prepping this about a million times easier since it shreds veggies like a dream! Certainly could be done on a box grater too, but watch your knuckles!

So pretty and purple!

Jicama Slaw
1 medium jicama (mine weight approx 1 lbs)
1 small head of purple cabbage (about softball sized)
2 large carrots
1 large granny smith apple
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp sesame oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Shred all the veggies and mix them up together.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients.

3. Combine the dressing and the veggies and mix well. Add salt & pepper to taste. Allow to sit for a bit to let the flavors mingle.

I found that the flavors got even better the next day! The sesame oil really mellowed out and the vinegar tanged up some! It yielded approx 7.5 cups of slaw! Hence my eating it daily.

WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS PLUS: 1 point per cup of slaw

Vegan MoFo Day 30: Comfort Food

I made it! I made it I made it I made it! 30 days of blogging! Sort of on a holiday theme the entire time. A few diversions anyway, but hey, I posted every day and that's what counts. I decided to end November with a typical easy cleaning-out-the-fridge comfort dinner we enjoy at Casa Megatarian. It can best be described as Pasta Primavera, as it is veggies and noodles, though we just go with the simple "vegetable pasta." It's quick, it's easy, it's delicious, and it will take whatever you've got around the house to toss in! I'll write up what I tossed in tonight, but it's just a suggestion. The important part is to have at least as many veggies as you've got pasta!


Vegetable Pasta
12 oz wholegrain pasta
1 large broccoli crown
1/4 head of cauliflower
1 15oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen peas
2 cups frozen spinach
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
Handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1. Prepare the pasta according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile... cut the veggies into bite sized pieces and dice the garlic. Heat the oil in a large skillet (I use a wok) and sautee the garlic until it is fragrant but don't let it brown. Add the veggies and sautee the whole lot until they've reached desired tenderness. Add bits of water here and there if the pan is getting too dry.

3. Drain the pasta, toss with the veggies, fresh parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with your Parmesan cheese substitute of choice!

And now, since I may not blog again for Blog knows how long, I leave you with a cruddy picture of my Christmas tree, and Laser Cats.

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Cookbook Review!

I've been wanting to write up a review for Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson for a while now, and just haven't gotten around to it. I got this cookbook last summer and have been using it like crazy ever since. I have been a huge fan of Robertson's cookbooks for a while. They're just full of really practical, delicious, recipes that you actually want to make! I'm not going to name names, but I've bought a few that sounded good and flipped through them and gone "Damn, I wish I hadn't ordered this. I wouldn't make a thing in here!" Not so with Robertson's books. I think I own at least 5 of them now, and they're all well stained with cooking love.

Vegan on the Cheap is great, not only because the recipes are cheap, but they're also EASY, and they contain normal ingredients you can easily find, and most of them come together pretty quickly! What more could a busy girl ask for? Some of my favorite recipes so far are....

Wheatballs!

The page for the Wheatball recipe is really easy to find in my book because it's stuck to the next page. I've made them that often. The recipe contains chickpeas and VWG and thus is similar to a Chickpea Cutlet, which I made into meatballs in some earlier blog entry, except unlike chickpea cutlets, it also contains MUSHROOMS!! This addition lends an additional meaty flavor to the balls. Above they are featured in Spaghetti O's. They also work well in Spaghetti and Wheatballs, Italian Wedding Soup, and Swedish Wheatballs.

Another favorite recipe of mine is Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cashews and Kidney Beans.
Now I am not one to go for salads for meals. This one drew me in, however, because sweet potatoes and I are best friends (recently I saw some research indicating that women who consume sweet potatoes around the time they conceive are more likely to conceive twins. This terrifies me. I love sweet potatoes, and do not want twins!). On top of the lovely roasted sweet potatoes, this recipe contains MORE of my favorite things -- cashews, peas, and kidney beans! What could be bad? Nothing, that's what. In this picture there's also some fresh corn in the salad because I had an ear of corn I needed to use up in the fridge. A very welcome addition! My only recommendation for this particular recipe is to double the amount of romaine (and thus dressing) the recipe calls for, because the first time we made it there didn't seem to be enough lettuce to "other stuff."

The Thai-Style Pineapple Rice Salad is also great, either hot or cold. I love the addition of fruit to a savory dish! I've made the Penne-Wise Peanutty Pasta for guests and it was a hit all around! Even having accidentally added (unsweetened) vanilla almond milk instead of original flavor, it was still delicious! Looking for an interesting way to use garden veggies? Try the Vegetable Crisp. I made this over the summer when I had an abundance of Zucchini, Tomatoes, and Eggplants. Anything with a crisp top goes over well around here!!

Penne-Wise Peanutty Pasta

One dish I made recently that went over VERY well in our house was the Walnut Crusted Tofu with Spinach and Orange. I got a big scowl the night I said I was serving this for dinner... until the boy took a bite. He was sold. He ate two giant plates of tofu topped with Spinach and Oranges with a side of roasted sweet potato slices. It really is delicious. The walnuts and panko make a crispy and rich crust covering a creamy and tangy mustard sauce, which makes the crust stick. The oranges and spinach went very well together and really lightened up the tofu. One change I made was using a full pound of fresh baby spinach leaves instead of 8 oz, and I'm glad I did because maybe I just like piling on my spinach, but we went through the entire pound and probably could have eaten more. Of course Spinach does cook down to nearly nothing.

Are you sold yet? Order it off of Amazon! Only $11.13 -- it's a Vegan COOKBOOK on the Cheap too!!

Vegan MoFo Day 28: Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole is one of those quintessential Thanksgiving foods that I had never eaten in my life until last year's Pre-Thanksgiving Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck. In my family, you didn't cover vegetables in "sauces" or ever use cream of anything soup for anything. The exception to this, somehow, was creamed spinach... but I'm just going to chalk that up to an anomaly. Sure we ate green beans, sauteed, with butter or green beans with slivered almonds, but never, never, with a cream sauce and fried onions in a can. Which leads to the second reason I'd never eaten this -- the onion thing. I think it's well known by now that I don't *do* onions. It's not that I dislike them, but they have a burning searing hatred for my guts... literally, so I don't eat them. Third -- Green Bean Casserole always seems to be made with canned green beans. I don't do canned vegetables either, with the exception of corn, and tomatoes, and legume type beans (i.e. chickpeas, kidney beans). I don't like squishy veggies. After two years of potlucks eating green beans with yummy mushroom sauce I decided I'd give it a go myself this year. After perusing lots of omni recipes, I decided I'd just wing it, and here's what I came up with, in all its delicious glory!



Green Bean Casserole
1 1/2 lbs FRESH green beans, ends snapped off, cut into 1" pieces
1/4 cup diced shallots
10 oz crimini (baby bella) mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups Creamy Portabello Mushroom Soup
1/2 cup non-dairy cream cheese (I used Follow Your Heart brand because I can't find Tofutti Nonhydrogenated here anymore!)
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 can French Fried Onions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat and add the shallots and mushrooms. Sautee until the mushrooms are all shrunk down and the shallots are soft and translucent.

2. Add the green beans to the skillet and continue to sautee until they are just fork tender. Keep in mind they will also be baked and you don't want soggy beans! Add a little of the mushroom soup if the pan needs some moisture.

3. Add the 2 tbsp of flour and sautee for a minute to get rid of the raw flour taste.

4. Add the soup and cream cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and stir often to dissolve all the cream cheese. Allow it to thicken slightly (just needs a few minutes) and remove from heat.

5. Pour your green bean gravy mixture into your baking pan of choice. Top with French Fried Onions, and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

So now you may be wondering "But what about the onions?!? You don't eat ONIONS!!" This is true. I portioned out a small amount for myself in a single serve baking dish and topped it with Panko. Problem solved :)

Vegan MoFo Day 27: Cranberry Remix

I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of cranberry sauce. Earlier in the month I posted the cranberry sauce recipe I make every year for Thanksgiving. That would have been my go-to for Thanksgiving this year as well, but then I got an email from the good people at Pom Wonderful offering me a case of their juice to try and play with. I'm a big fan of Pomegranite juice. Heck, I love pomegranites, I just can't get past how difficult they are to eat. I'm not good at swallowing bunches of seeds so eating a fresh pomegranite is a messy, spitty experience. Pom Wonderful takes all the great sweet-tart taste of fresh pomegranites and gets rid of those pesky seeds, leaving you with, really, a wonderful beverage. No false advertising there! The juice is a little pricy, but for drinking, a little goes a long way. You can add a splash to water and it gives it a bright color and good flavor. It's actually a bit strong for drinking straight (for me anyway, but I'm primarily a water drinker!).

Anyway, my juice arrived on Monday, just in time for Thanksgiving application. I thought the juice would lend itself well to cranberry sauce, and I wasn't wrong!! I put together a Cran-Pomegranite sauce with ginger and cinnamon and it was so delicious! The Pomegranite gave it a depth of flavor but blended seamlessly with the cranberries. I would definitely make this again and again!!


Cran-Pomegranite Sauce
1 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries
8 oz Pom Wonderful pomegranite juice
1 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
5 slices fresh ginger

Put everything in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until all the berries pop and the sauce begins to thicken. Allow to cool to room temperature, then fish out the cinnamon stick and ginger slices. Put in an air tight container and refrigerate overnight to allow it to thicken more and set.

Vegan MoFo Day 26: Mimicreme Healthy Top Review

Whippable vegan cream has long been an elusive find. There's the mysterious "Rich's Whip," who actually sent me a coupon for a free container to try, but none of the stores here ever actually have anything but Rich's Coffee Stuff, whatever it's called. Then there was Soyatoo, and the whippable soyatoo actually is much better than the canned stuff, but really needs some vanilla and extra sugar added. Then there is the homemade whipped coconut cream, where you take a can of coconut milk with lots of fat, refrigerate it, and whip the thick creamy stuff with sugar and vanilla. It's definitely tasty, but has a coconut flavor to it, and stays very soft. Recently I discovered Mimicreme "Healthy Top" whippable nut cream at the co-op.
I love regular Mimicreme for recipes requiring heavy cream, so I was very excited to see the Healthy Top. Also, Mimicreme is a local product, and yay for supporting local business. I bought a box for our Thanksgiving potluck earlier this month but we were all too stuffed for dessert, so it waited in my fridge until last night when we whipped it up for dessert.


This stuff whips beautifully!! In just a few minutes in the Kitchenaid we had stiff whipped peaks of creamy goodness! It was impressive how well it held its shape. The flavor right off the bat was better than Soyatoo. For one thing, being soy-free, it didn't have the beany aftertaste that Soyatoo has. Second, without adding any extra sugar or flavoring, the whip was sweet and had a nice vanilla flavor. It did have some downsides. It has a slightly odd after-texture, leaving a sort of strange feeling on your tongue. This is more evident if you're eating it by the spoonful -- uhh not that we were doing this or anything. Also, for being named "Healthy Whip" it has 50 calories per tablespoon, 6% of your daily value of fat, and 12% of your daily value of saturated fat per tbsp. Granted, there's no cholesterol, and the fat is from nuts and coconut, but I really wouldn't call it "healthy" otherwise.

In the end, I would absolutely buy it again to top a pie or other dessert. I would also love to try to fold some chocolate into it for a mousse. It is VERY rich and a little goes a long way, but I think it's really easy to overdo it on whipped cream, and you do have to keep in mind that box or no, it's not all that healthy! For a treat every now and again, however, go for it!