Day 170 -- Home-Grown Greens

My father has a wonderful garden in the summer, but I've never truly appreciated fresh veggies until I started eating vegan.  In truth, I didn't eat many veggies at all until I started down this road.  Today, I paid a visit to the family garden and my father gave me some collard greens to try.  I'm going to add them to my list of new foods since I'd never tasted them before.

They weren't exactly what I was expecting.  I expected tough and slightly bitter.  The leaves were tender and they tasted a lot like kohlrabi.  The word "collard" comes from the word "colewort" which means cabbage plant and collard greens are from the same family as kale and spring greens.  They are generally eaten year-round in the South. Typical seasonings when cooking collards can consist of smoked and salted meats (ham hocks, smoked turkey drumsticks, pork neckbones, fatback or other fatty meat), diced onions, vinegar, salt, and black, white, or crushed red pepper, and some cooks add a small amount of sugar.

Traditionally, collards are eaten on New Year's Day, along with black-eyed peas or field peas and cornbread, to ensure wealth in the coming year, as the leaves resemble folding money. Cornbread is used to soak up the "pot liquor", a nutrient-rich collard broth. Collard greens may also be thinly sliced and fermented to make collard kraut, which is often cooked with flat dumplings.

But how to use collards in vegan cooking?  I know they're greens, which are often sadly missing in my diet.  I'm going to try them first in my superfoods soup.  I think they might hold up well in the broth since they are somewhat like kale.  But first, I'm going to adapt a recipe I found in Vegetarian Times for Collard Greens and Rice.  And I'm going to try cooking it in my rice cooker!

Collard Greens and Brown Rice
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp Korean red pepper flakes
1 cups collard greens, rinsed and chopped
pepper, to taste
cayenne pepper (optional)

Maybe I'll add some red beans and a little chili powder.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Day 169 -- It's Time For Tempeh

A few weeks ago, I bought a package of tempeh.  It was part of my plan to try all three meat "substitutes" -- tofu, tempeh and seitan.  Tofu has become a staple in my diet.  Seitan, not so much.  I really didn't enjoy the chewy meat gluten.  But I have higher hopes for tempeh.  During my recent visit to one of my fav websites, The Post Punk Kitchen, I came across this recipe for Tempeh Chimichurri.

I was immediately intrigued because I've heard of chimichurri, but I've never eaten it.  I don't really know what it is.  It turns out that chimichurri is a sauce for meat that originates in Argentina.  Chimichurri is made from finely chopped parsley (or cilantro), minced garlic, olive oil, oregano, and white or red wine vinegar. Additional flavorings such as coriander, paprika, cumin, thyme, lemon, and bay leaf may be included. In its red version, tomato and red bell pepper may also be added. It can also be used as a marinade for grilled meat. Chimichurri is available bottled or dehydrated for preparation by mixing with oil and water. Somewhat similar sauces are pistou and pesto.

So, I'm about to add two new taste treats to my list of new foods -- tempeh and chimichurri sauce.  Will report back soon.
  

Day 168 -- My Little Herb Garden

For the first time in forever, I've planted an herb garden (in a large pot) and I'm actually going to love having the herbs available to use.  I've planted herb gardens in the past with the best of intentions, but the only thing I've been interested in eating is the basil.  This time, I planted two kinds of mint (for mojitos, of course), basil, cilantro, dill and Italian Parsley.  These are all herbs that I've purchased from the grocery store since going vegan and now, I can just step out my kitchen door and -- snip, snip -- I have fresh herbs!

I'm really looking forward to having cilantro and parsley at hand.  I have so many recipes that call for these two herbs and I find that when I buy them, half of the bunch usually rots in the fridge.  It's so frustrating to me when food goes bad.  I never used to bother me, but I've been so in tune with the food I eat that I really hate to waste anything.  I'm also thinking of starting a pot of baby greens -- especially my favorite, arugula.  We've had a very cool start to the summer, so maybe I could get a cool weather crop like lettuce to grow.

Day 167 -- The Ultimate Comfort Food

There is nothing better than a good mac and cheese.  Now, I have to admit that I've cheese-cheated over the past couple of weeks.  I've eaten real dairy cheese three times in two weeks.  Twice on pizza and once in a cheese soup.  But, I've learned not to be so hard on myself and I'm going to try to get through the next six months without another cheese-cheat.  It's not quite as bad as a meat-cheat, but still not the best for my efforts to shed a few more pounds.  I need "Just Say No!" when it comes to cheese.

To that end, I came across this recipe for Chipoltle Mac and Cheese (with roasted Brussels sprouts!) that I'm looking forward to cooking!  It comes from one of my favorite websites, The Post Punk Kitchen, which features lots of yummy vegan recipes.

I've tried a Mac and Cheese with butternut squash that was pretty passable (see Day 60, February 24th), but this one uses cashews to create the creamy sauce.  Though it's definitely more caloric and higher in fat that the butternut option, I'm thinking I might want to try to combine the two recipes and see if I can find a happy medium.  I will report back and let you know how it was!

ETA: This is really yummy.  But also very spicy.  I used two 1.5 inch chipoltles in adobo sauce in a half recipe.  Next time I make it, I'm going to cut the peppers back by half.  A little too spicy for me, but very creamy and cheese-like.

Day 166 -- It's Cherry Time!

And it's my favorite time of the year -- cherry time!  I can't tell you how much I look forward to seeing that first bag of cherries in the grocery store.  And this last week I had a choice of two varieties, dark red (almost black) and bing cherries  I bought three pounds of dark red cherries and they were so incredibly delicious that I'd be willing to put them on my top five favorite foods list!

I can hardly wait until Ranier cherries are available.  They are the best of  best in my opinion.  So sweet and crisp and pretty to look at.  One thing I need to buy is a cherry pitter so I can try to incorporate cherries into a few recipes.  Right now, I just eat them right out of a bowl, but I'm sure I could find some way to bake them into a delicious vegan treat.  That's my mission tomorrow.  Bed, Bath and Beyond and a cherry pitter.  And the grocery store for another three pounds of cherries.

Day 165 -- Juan Canary, Spanish Movie Star or Exotic Melon?

I couldn't resist.  This always happens when I'm searching for subject matter for this blog.  I scour the grocery store looking for something interesting to eat.  And what did I find a few days ago, but a Juan Canary melon!   Exotic fruits can be so interesting to taste and I was really looking forward to this new treat.

The rind of the melon is bright yellow, exactly the color of canary.  And the flesh is the same color as a pear.  The taste is somewhere between a honey dew and a cantaloupe.  This is a fairly common melon in Asia and Japan and it was pretty yummy.  The store had a few other "variety" melons on sale right next to this one, so I'm going to give another one a try!  

Day 164 -- Polenta: A New New Food

Yesterday I pondered a deep question -- what is corn?  Is it a vegetable?  A legume?  A grain?  The question only led to more questions until I was so confused I decided the only solution was to cook.  So, I grabbed my grits and whipped up this recipe for Quinoa-Polenta & BBQ Sauce that I found on Straight Up Food.  This is a great website with lots of vegan recipes that are low fat as well.

Polenta is essentially the Italian version of corn grits.  I'd never tasted either one, so this was going to be something new.  But love corn, so how could I go wrong?  I cooked the polenta/quinoa mixture in my rice cooker which made it so much easier.  No stirring, no watching.  Once it was cooked, I spread it in a parchement paper-lined pan and baked it.

The mix of polenta and quinoa in this recipe is so tasty.  And baked, it's like a cross between a bread and a grain.  I didn't make the BBQ sauce and instead used a drizzle of Sweet Baby Ray's, which is a favorite of mine.  And I added a little fajita seasoning to the sauteed veggies and added avocado chunks and sliced scallions as a creamy and crunchy topping.  This is definitely going to go on my favorite list.  So check out Straight Up Food!  Yum!