Simple Dinner, and Perfect for Lunch!

Well, it's almost that time of year where children go back to school, the summer days are getting shorter, and it's time to get back into the grind. It's great having a few recipes on hand that make a tasty, simple dinner, and make great leftovers for lunch. This brown rice salad gives you the needed fibre, protein, carbs and veggie intake all in one, and it tastes fantastic too!

Brown Rice Salad

1 14oz can of black beans (presoaked and boiled black beans are better, but if you are short for time a can is fine)
1 red pepper, diced
1 avocado, diced
2 roma tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
1/4 cup soya sauce
2 tablespoon sesame oil
5 tablespoon lemon juice
coriander for garnish
black sesame seeds for garnish

Directions:

Set 3 cups of water and brown rice to boil with a pinch of salt.Once it starts boiling, cover it with the lid and put the stove on low for about 30 minutes until tender.

While rice is cooking:

Mix together the soya sauce, sesame oil and lemon juice. Set aside.

Mix together the black beans, red pepper, avocado, tomatoes, and corn. Add the cooked rice once it's cooked and at room temperature. Add the dressing.

Garnish with coriander and black sesame seeds and enjoy!

I also like to add some hot sauce as a condiment for some heat!

Is Chia the new Flax?

As I was walking through London Ontario's largest summer event, the Sun festival, I came across a booth that offered Nicaraguan food. Once I realized I couldn't indulge in any of their meat infested tasters or meals, I quickly moved to three very interesting juices that they offered. One in particular was very tasty. It was sweet, with a mix of tamarind, some other flavors and these tiny little seeds called chia. I quickly fell in love with the texture of these seeds. Each little seed had formed its own little gel covering, and I could feel each cold gelly seed sail down my throat and cool my insides instantly - it was very refreshing!

As soon I got home, I did a little research, and soon came to know that chia seeds have unbelievable health properties, even more so than flax. Many of the articles I read claim that chia seeds have more omega-3, are much higher in fibre, and have significantly more calcium than flax. Flax seeds need to be grinded in order for a human to take advantage of the flax seeds health properties and moreover it is claimed that ground flax seed can only be stored to a maximum of 3 days before oxidation occurs and deteriorates its health properties. Chia seeds do not have this issue because they do not oxidate and therefore can be stored for a much longer period of time in this form. Chia seeds also have no flavor, so you can add them to pretty much anything without altering the taste of the food.

Flax Seeds and Chia Seeds











Pretty amazing stuff! With one down side...

Cost - Flax is dirt cheap, chia is quite expensive. I just purchased about a 1/2 pound of chia seeds for $7 (for you Torontonians, I purchased them at the back of King's Cafe Restaurant in Kensington Market), I can purchase flax for no more than $2 for 1 pound. I have no doubts that chia seeds will get more cost effective once it grows in popularity, but for now, I think I may mix the use of both seeds with different food items.

Here is my attempt at a cold refreshing chia drink, with a limited amount of sugar.

Refreshing Chia Drink

3 cups of water
3 hibiscus flowers or one hibiscus tea bag
2 tsp tamarind paste
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp chia seeds, soaked in 1 cup of water for 30 mins

Boil water and remove from stove.
Throw in hibiscus flowers or tea bag and sugar. Cover and let steep for 10 mins.
Mix in tamarind paste until dissolved.
Taste it at this point and adjust the sweet (sugar) and sour (tamarind) to your taste. The flavor should be strong because you will be diluting it later, but should be a good balance of both flavors.
Pour into a jug and mix in chia seeds.
Fill jug with water to the rim and put in fridge until chilled through.

Enjoy! Garnish with mint to make it fancy.

And yes, they are the same as the seeds you sprout on a Chia Pet!

So you have a limp head of cauliflower….

That poor head of cauliflower. You bought it for an unbelievable deal (ok ok, I bought it for a buck, how could I say no? ) thinking ‘yeah yeah I’ll find a way to use it!’. It sits in the fridge and day by day, you keep telling yourself you will use it the next day and the next day and the next. Suddenly, you have come to the realization that the poor head of cauliflower is on its last legs, can’t be eaten raw, won’t make a great aloo gobi so now what? Pulverize!! Steam and soupify it. This can also be done with old broccoli. As long as you haven’t kept it in the fridge to the point that it has gone rotten, limp broccoli or cauliflower makes a great silky smooth soup.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

1 head of cauliflower, chopped into florets
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 cup of regular milk of plain soya milk
1 low sodium vegetable bouillon cube
1 tsp caraway seeds, roasted
Salt and pepper to taste
Green onion, finely chopped for garnish

Steam the cauliflower until fully cooked through.

In the meantime, in a sauce pan, heat olive oil, add onion and a sprinkle of salt. Cook over medium heat until onions are translucent and soft.

In a blender, pulverize the cauliflower, cooked onion and add the milk until the mixture is smooth.

Transfer back to the saucepan and add the bouillon cube, caraway seeds and some more salt if needed. Heat through. Add more milk or water depending on your desired consistency of the soup. Make sure the bouillon cube has fully dissolved into the soup.

Serve in a pretty soup bowl with fresh ground pepper and green onion on top.

For a little added richness, you can add a small dollop of margarine or butter. I love toasting multigrain bread with margarine on the side and dipping it into my soup!

For a Guaranteed Crispy Homeade Pizza Crust.......

...you need a pizza stone! One of the best purchases I ever made for $10 at Walmart. Made of some type of porous clay, when heated up, it has properties that allows it to not only bake pizza dough evenly, but it also absorbs some of the moisture in the crust, hence creating a very crispy crust that will allow your pizza to hold its shape after it has been sliced through.

It is ever so frustrating when you take that first piece of homemade pizza and it just slumps over like a really old man, and all of your toppings fall off. Given that your pizza dough is rolled out to a decent thickness, baking your pizza on a stone will fix the issue. MAKE SURE that you spread a decent layer of corn meal on your stone before placing your pizza on it, otherwise your pizza will become part of your stone!

This is probably the best pizza I have ever had. The strong flavours of vegan pesto matched with the touch of sweetness in the roasted vegetables is fabulous. If you are not vegan, I recommend adding parmesan cheese to the pesto. There are quite a few steps to this pizza, which is why I recommend just buying ready made dough to roll out yourself. If you are really lazy, you can even buy a ready made crust that is half cooked. Enjoy!

Aromatic Roasted Vegetable Pesto Pizza

1 whole wheat pizza crust
3/4 block of extra firm tofu
1 cup spinach leaves
1/2 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 of a large eggplant, peeled and cut into 3 inch strips
1 onion (Vidalia or Spanish work best), cut into strips
1 red pepper, cut into strips
2 artichokes, chopped
5 mushrooms, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 Tablespoons brown sugar, or even better, honey
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
grated cheese to your taste
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Toss eggplant, onion, red pepper and garlic with olive oil, sugar/honey and a pinch of salt. Bake in an oven at 375F until cooked through (about 25 min)

In a food processor, puree tofu, spinach, basil, 1/4 cup olive oil, tomato paste and salt and pepper to your liking. Add a little bit of water if this puree is too thick to process to a smooth texture. Set aside.

Spread majority of the tofu mixture all over pizza as the sauce. Once roasted veggies are cooked, spread all over pizza, then add the artichokes and mushrooms.

Take the leftover tofu spread and dollop small amounts on top of pizza.

Bake in a 350 F over until crust is crispy on the bottom and cooked through and it's bubbly hot.

Let me know how it turns out!

Warm Welcome with the Perfect Cup of Chai

Welcome to my first post. My name is Reena and have been obsessed with vegetarian food and cooking for as long as I can remember. I grew up with one older sister who was baking cakes in the oven that always overflowed and made my mom scream, and another older sister who had a deeper interest on the savoury side of things. Good food runs in my family and so here I am finally expressing my bottled up thoughts online. I hope you enjoy it.

I wanted my first post to be about something that is very near and dear to my heart: chai. It wakes me up in the morning, and keeps my insides warm to fall asleep in the evening. Some of you may think you know good chai because you had it at Starbucks - well I am sorry to say that the brown sludge that they mix into a cup of steamed milk will never top a homemade cup of chai. The best part about it is that this warm, aromatic, smooth drink is so easy to make. Probably the best cup of chai I ever had was off the streets in Mumbai. For 4 rupees, you get this mini espresso shot of milky, sweet, thick, strong chai that has been boiling endlessly to allow all of the spices, tea and milk to perfectly meld with one another. It's fabulous.

For my fellow veganites, this can be made with soy milk instead of milk, but it won't be the same. If you prefer this substitution, try to pick a thicker soy milk like So Good brand - DO NOT USE flavored soy milk, or reduced fat soy milks, you will not get the right consistency or taste.

What you will need to make 2 mugs of chai:

2 full mugs of water
2 tsp Indian black loose tea or 1 Tetley orange pekoe tea bag
2 pods of cardamom, with seeds removed from pods
1 stick of cinnamon, broken in half
3 slices of ginger (no need to peel), about 1/4 inch thick
1/2 mug of either 2% or homo milk (DO NOT USE 1% or skim)
sugar to your taste

Bring the water to a boil in a medium heavy pot, then add the tea, cinnamon and ginger slices.
Bring the heat down to medium.
In a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle, grind/crush the cardamom seeds and add that to your pot of chai.
Let this boil on medium for about 2 minutes.
Bring the heat up to high and add the milk. Watch this VERY carefully, because the milk will quickly overflow if you let it boil. Also, your chai solution should be a nice almond colored liquid. If it is darker than this, add a little more milk. Once it starts to boil, bring it down to medium heat and let this boil for another 2 minutes.

Voila! Strain your homemade chai into two mugs and add sugar to your taste.