My cooking and eating life have been completely consumed by the CSA box lately. The CSA box more or less dictates what I eat, and it's been really nice. But it's also been a lot of salads and slaw and stir-fried veg and sauteed greens with pasta, and not so much creative recipe action. Did you know you can eat pretty much any vegetable top sauteed if not raw? It's true. Here are some novel greens I have eaten in the last few weeks:
-Kohlrabi
-Radish
-Carrot
-Broccoli
-Cauliflower
I weep for all of the supermarket vegetables, denuded of their greens, and I weep for the many years I was too dumb to think of cooking and eating the greens attached to my vegetables. I'm telling you, you can eat just about anything sauteed in olive oil with garlic and some red pepper flakes and salt and pepper and maybe a squeeze of lemon.
In non-CSA ingredient news, I whipped up the following brilliant little snack a few weeks ago:
I've made green pea hummus two ways: with and without chickpeas. If you want a completely raw snack, do all peas; if you enjoy the chickpea action, use half chickpeas and half green peas. It's delicious either way, and a little lighter, sweeter, and springier than traditional hummus.
Green Pea Hummus
2 cups frozen green peas, thawed (I just soaked them in water for 15 minutes or so), or fresh ones if you're lucky and industrious (the shelling, you know)
2-3 tablespoons raw tahini
2 small minced cloves of garlic, or more to taste
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
a sprinkle of cayenne
olive or flaxseed oil as needed--not mandatory, but rather tasty and smooth
Whip it all up in a blender and serve with veggies, crackers, or your fingers.
It's been the week of the chickpea here at the makeshift kitchen. Several days ago I cooked up a huge batch with no real plan for them, but it's been nice to have cooked beans on hand to use as I wish (and with which to make yet more Chickpea Cutlets). I just cooked an even larger batch of aduki/adzuki/azuki beans, so stay tuned as I explore their manifold uses.
Anyway, this slaw thing just sort of came to me after I shredded a bit of beet for a variation on the house salad the other day. I love beets in all forms, but I have to say I haven't done a lot of raw beet goodness apart from the occasional trip to a juice bar (my favorite: carrot apple beet juice with lots of ginger). This recipe totally remedies that situation. It also made use of an old-ass apple I had in the fridge. You know that one apple? It's gotten a little too wrinkly to eat as a snack, but you only have one of them, so you don't want to make applesauce? Here's one way to use that apple.
Carrot Apple Beet Slaw with Chickpeas
Mix up a vinaigrette:
1/4 cup olive oil
a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
a healthy plop of dijon mustard
a few squirts of Braggs Liquid Aminos (or plain old soy sauce)
1/2 tsp of thyme
1/2 tsp basil
Whisk together in a medium bowl and add 2 cups cooked chickpeas. Let that all mellow together and work on your veggies.
2 large carrots, grated
1 medium beet, grated
(Note: I just scrubbed the veggies really well instead of peeling. They're organic and there's good stuff in the skin, you dig?)
1 apple, peeled and grated
1 rib celery, chopped, including the leafy bits, why not?
1 scallion, chopped
Mix it all together with the vinaigrettey chickpeas, add salt if you need it, and garnish with black pepper and pumpkin or sunflower seeds or serve over lettuce.
The title of this post pretty much gives it all away, but I'll write out the "recipe" for this salad anyway. It's become a staple at our house because it is so simple, delicious, fresh, and easy to put together.
Salad!
Half a bag of arugula or mixed greens that include arugula (though this is also very good with spinach)
A smallish carrot, grated or better yet, shaved with your peeler until there is nothing left but a pile of carrot curls
A diced crunchy apple, like honeycrisp (our favorite) or granny smith
A handful of pumpkin seeds
For the dressing, whisk together a few tablespoons of olive oil or a mix of flaxseed and olive oils, a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar, a dash of Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and a squirt of Dijon mustard. It's also good with just the oil and vinegar, or with lemon instead of mustard, or with a squirt of agave nectar.
Toss it all together and serve it up.
Serves two enthusiastic eaters of salad, or one verrry hungry person who wants to make a meal of salad, or maybe three less enthusiastic eaters of salad.
I'm experimenting with more raw and vegan foods these days, which has led to some new recipes, which is always good times. Last week I tried making my own Almond Milk from a recipe at happy foody and while I'm not sure I'm a total convert, it was super-easy. I used soaked dates to sweeten and good old fashioned gauze fabric to strain (since I don't own a nutbag, and seriously, how do people not laugh hysterically whenever they think about, mention, or use a nutbag? NUTBAG!!), and it worked just fine.
This almond milk has a thin texture that won't be a surprise to anyone who drinks rice milk, but it is thinner than the commercial almond milk I've tried. This doesn't really bother me. I'm also not sure it's more cost-effective than buying almond milk, at least if you're using organic almonds. But it certainly makes less waste and isn't really a drain on your time, so why not?
So far I'm liking it best on cereal and in smoothies. I haven't figured out yet what to do with the leftover pulp--maybe make a tart crust of some kind? Also, who knew that soaking almonds would make them so juicy and delicious? You might try that (with raw almonds, that is), even if nut milk (ALSO a hilarious phrase) doesn't interest you.
Sorry; I'm immature.
I have a strong immune system and I'm generally successfully at staving off illness or keeping it pretty mild when I do get sick. But for about the last month, I've periodically felt like I'm fighting something off, which is annoying. I know I'm not getting enough sleep, and that's job one. Locking the cat out of the bedroom at night, sad as it seems, is helping with that.
But I also don't think I've been eating as well as I could, and too often I find myself mindlessly gobbling down something that doesn't make me feel good (or that I don't even enjoy very much), and thinking that I need to make some changes. I can just tell that I'm undergoing some kind of dietary shift, which I posted about over on mavenhaven last week.
Enter the green smoothie.
There are eleventy billion raw food sites and green smoothie recipes out there, and advocates of particular high horsepower blenders--and while I have to admit that I sort of covet the Blendtec, the nice thing about green smoothies is that you don't really need any dietary philosophy, recipe, or special equipment to make them.
So I'm just adding a green smoothie every day, and I'm going to see how it goes. Here's what I am drinking today:
Green and Mean
Two handfuls of spinach (stems are fine)
A deveined leaf of dino kale
A deveined collard green
A handful of parsley
A kiwi, with some of the peel removed
A banana
1/4 cup applesauce (fresh apple chunks would be great too)
1/4 of an avocado
Water
(A blender of some description)
Blend leafage and water first, adding more water as needed to get everything well blended. Add fruits one at a time. Drink slowly, maybe not in a single sitting. The flavor is fresh, lightly sweet and fruity, with a grassy undertone. If that bugs you, add more fruit. This made about 24 ounces.
You'll notice I'm starting slow with the tougher greens. I'm not interested in instigating a bunch of toilet troubles, as my boyfriend likes to call them, so you're not going to catch me chugging these or drinking an all-kale smoothie any time soon.
This is day two of the experiment. I'll keep you posted.
