Red Quinoa with Veggies

Red what? Red Quinoa (keen-wa). It's a grain. And a really good one too, according to the ancient Incas who believed the crop to be sacred and termed it,"Mother of all grains". Yep, we looked it up on Wikipedia. We like research, what can we say.

We have been using Quinoa for quite some time now. In our opinion, it's a good rice replacement, and goes perfectly with tofu and veggies.

This recipe is a recent creation and went over real well with the little ones. In addition to it's excellent taste, Quinoa is loaded with protein for all of you vegan/veggies out there who worry about getting enough in your diet.

So get your bowls ready....here comes a yummy meal!

What you'll need:

Red Quinoa

Black Beans

1-2 Tsp cumin

1-2 Onions

Cilantro: as much you like (we love it, so use a ton)use at least 1/2 cup

3 cloves of garlic

1 pound firm Tofu pan fried til golden brown in a tsp of sesame oil (or whatever you like)
Lots of Atulfo Mangos - say one for each person eating
Bunch Spinach
Half a Tomato for each person
Avocados

Salsa to taste
Lime to taste
Tortilla Chips as needed to scoop up yummy stuff

Cook Quinoa according to package directions, only, add a vegetable bouillon cube to the water.

Make your own 'refried' black beans, or use canned, put black bean in a large frying pan with some of the liquid, add add onions, cumin, garlic and cilantro and mash. Cook until a nice thick consistency mashing and stirring often.

Put a layer of chopped fresh spinach in the bowl, add quinoa, beans and other toppings to taste. Enjoy!

Poundless Poundcake

You'll never guess how many times we get the question ,"What do vegetarians eat?" Here's our answer: Salad. Ha! We're joking, of course!

While we do eat our fair share of salads, we also eat plenty of other stuff, as you have probably learned through viewing our other recipes. We also get to eat delicious treats without modifying them at all.

However, when we decided to go a step further and start incorporating some vegan entrees and desserts into our diets, we were pleasantly surprised!. Yeah, we knew that most health care professionals tell you that cutting down on animal products will result in better health. But still, even some part of us had a preconceived notion that being vegan meant boring. Thank goodness we were so wrong!

We love the traditional pound cake topped with whatever fresh berries are in season, but we dislike the heavy, icky feeling we get right after eating it. So, we've created this 'Poundless Cake' with taste and health in mind. This recipe proves just how simple and delicious a vegan dessert can be, so go ahead and indulge a bit! Remember though, even though this pound cake was created without animal fats, it is still dessert!

Enjoy!!

What You’ll Need:

1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
6 ounces firm tofu (blending or processing first assures no lumps)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cups water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 5 x 9" loaf pan. Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in tofu until well combined. Add 1 cup flour and, with mixer on low, mix just until incorporated. Add water and extracts and do the same. End with remaining cup of flour and baking powder. Increase speed to medium and beat for 1-2 minutes. Spoon mixture into pan and lightly smooth the top. Place on the center rack of the oven and bake for 55 minutes.

Top with our cashew cream, or (vice cream) and fresh berries or whipped cream and fresh berries. YUM!

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burger

If you're anything like me you love portobello mushrooms. I eat them with pasta, in salads, or I just eat them by themselves. They are perfect for a healthier burger option anytime of year.

What you’ll need:

4 Portobello mushrooms
2 Cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbs Red wine vinegar
2 Tbs olive oil
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Burger buns
Swiss cheese
Sweet onion, thinly sliced and sautée
Tomato, thinly sliced
Lettuce

Clean mushroom caps and remove stems.

In a small bowl combine the, oil, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and vinegar. Brush over the mushrooms making sure to coat completely.

Heat a grill pan or outdoor grill on medium heat. Put the mushrooms, gill side down, onto the grill and grill about 4 to 5 minutes on each side. Once mushroom is cooked on each side top with a slice of swiss cheese. After you flip the mushrooms top each with 2 tablespoons of Cheddar.

While the mushrooms are grilling sautee onions. Remove mushrooms from the grill and serve on the toasted buns with grilled onions, lettuce and tomato slices.

Blueberry Cobbler

Nothing says summer like berry cobblers. They are the perfect dessert for a BBQ or potluck. Just make sure you reserve some for yourself before serving everyone else, cause it will disappear fast!! Seriously, this Blueberry Cobbler was a hit at the Pindur going away Potluck and it was gone the moment I placed it on the table.

Aside from their incredible taste, blueberries are loaded with antioxidants, have been proven to improve brain health and help fight heart disease too. I’ve even read that they help reduce belly fat. Well, that’s perfect, cause we might have a little extra to get rid of after eating this dessert ;)

Seriously though, when in season, blueberries are a great treat and really don’t need anything to go along with them….but they sure do make an incredible cobbler.

For those of you out there who like cobblers, but don’t like them too sweet, you may want to reduce the amount of sugar. Remember, you’re gonna top it with ice cream, aren’t you?

What you’ll need:

3 cups of fresh blueberries
½ lemon
1 1/8 cup of sugar
4 Tbs of butter substitute
1 ½ cups of whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ cup soy milk
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ tsp salt
1 ½ Tbs cornstarch
Ground cinnamon
¾ cup boiling water

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 baking dish.

Spread blueberries out to cover the bottom of the dish. Squeeze lemon over them.

In a mixer stir together butter substitute and 1 1/8 cup of sugar until smooth. Stir in flour and baking powder, alternating with soy milk, until smooth. Don’t worry about the consistency of the batter it will be fantastic. Mix the batter into the berries and spread evenly over the baking dish.

In your mixer mix together 1 ½ cups of sugar, salt and cornstarch. Sprinkle over the top of the batter. Dust with cinnamon and then pour the boiling water over the entire dish. It seems weird but it works, trust me.

Bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour or until golden brown. Serve warm and top with vanilla ice cream. Heaven on a plate.

Popcorn

Yay! It’s movie night at our house! There is nothings better then curling up on the couch with your family to watch a movie and enjoy a nice warm bowl of homemade popcorn. You agree, right? I’m not talking about putting a bag in the microwave and letting radiation cook my food, no way. I’m talking about good old fashion pan popcorn. I know, I know…. you don’t have time for that. My goodness, haven’t you learned anything from us? This is quick and easy. It takes just as long as the microwave does, minus the radiation, unnecessary food coloring, and TBHQ….yeah, I didn’t know what that was either. All the more reason not to eat it. Here’s a rule to eat by: Can’t pronounce it, don’t know what it is? Don’t ingest it. Period.

For now though, let’s appreciate this yummy (and much less scary) popcorn.

What you’ll need:

3 Tbs olive oil
1/3 cup corn kernels
2 Tbs butter substitute, melted
Salt

Put olive oil and some salt in pan and let it heat up on medium high. To make sure oil is heated enough, throw a few kernels in and wait for them to pop, then, add the rest and cover with the lid slightly ajar and wait and listen. Soon you’ll hear pop, pop, pop and you’re almost done. To avoid burning your pan, be sure to shake it during the whole process. When the popping slows down to one or two pops a second remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. While stirring pour butter substitute over popcorn, don’t forget to add the salt to taste.

Simple right? Really now, what did you expect from us?

Want a cheesy flavored popcorn? Well, here’s a way to change up this recipe and add some Vitamin B at the same time. After the final step, add some nutritional yeast to your popcorn and there you go! Now you can feel good about the movie snacks you choose to give your family, I know I do.

Avocado Spring Rolls

These are not your ordinary spring rolls. I don’t remember the exact date I first tried these at The Cheesecake Factory, but I think we were in California with my boys and mother in law on a trip to Disneyland.



“Avocado spring rolls... that sounds interesting”, I thought.

“Oh we may want to order two of those” my mother-in-law's sister told us.

Well, she was right. We gobbled those up so quickly and even made an out of the way trip back to the Cheesecake Factory, a few days later, to pick up some more before our flight home. Yep, they were that good.

Since we don’t have a Cheesecake Factory in Oregon yet, I knew I needed to recreate these to share with my friends and family. So here is my version of avocado spring rolls, but you may want to double this recipe.

Dipping Sauce

1 Tbs white vinegar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
½ tamarind pulp
½ cup honey or agave
1 pinch ground saffron
½ chopped cashews
2/3 cup fresh cilantro
2 cloves garlic
2 green onions
1 Tbs sugar (optional)
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
¼ cup olive oil

In a small pot mix vinegars, tamarind paste, honey and saffron and heat for about 1 minute, until tamarind dissolves. Puree this mixture, cashews, cilantro, garlic, green onions, sugar (if using), pepper and cumin in food processor.

Pour mixture into bowl and stir in oil. Refrigerate until ready to use. Make sure to save any leftovers. This is an excellent dip for fresh veggies!

Spring Rolls

1 large avocado, pitted and diced
2 Tbs sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped
1 Tbs minced red onion
½ tsp chopped fresh cilantro
1 pinch salt
Egg roll wrappers
Cornstarch and warm water to seal rolls

Gently stir together avocadoes, sun dried tomatoes, red onions, ½ tsp of cilantro and salt.

Create a glue with the cornstarch and warm water to use to hold the spring roll together.

Distributed filling evenly onto center of each egg roll wrapper

Position wrapper so the point is facing you, fold the bottom corner up so it just covers the filling. Continue rolling up from side to side fold corners in and seal with cornstarch mix.

Deep fry rolls in hot oil for 3-4 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper bag.



For those of you more health conscious individuals, you can try baking them on 425 for 15 minutes then flip and cook for an additional 10 minutes.



Slice rolls diagonally across the middle and serve with dipping sauce. Oh, and be sure to take a couple for yourself, cause they’re gonna go real fast.

Instant Pudding

Did I say instant? Heck yeah I did. You can make this pudding quicker than you can stir all the lumps out of that box crap. And as you might have guessed, it’s much healthier. No dairy, no eggs, no junk. Yup that’s right it’s all natural. Ok, I know what you’re thinking. You’re asking yourself, how can it taste good then? We said healthy, not disgusting. Don’t be fooled - nature provides us with all sorts of amazing foods that taste fabulous. Really now, would we post a recipe that sucked? Don’t answer that…you know it’s gonna be good. So…. what’s in it? Sorry, that’s our little secret. Okay okay, we’ll share it with you. Drum roll please…. avocados. Yup you read it right, A V O C A D O S. Man this pudding’s so good.

Here’s the deal, after you make this for your friends, and they love it, then you can share the secret with them too…we promise, they’ll want it (unless they’re freaks). In the meantime enjoy this healthy treat, your body will thank you.

What you’ll need

2 ripe avocados

1 Tbs vanilla, make sure it’s the real stuff

About a cup of maple syrup, yeah spend the money on this too, the bottle with the lady on it is not real maple syrup and you can definitely taste the difference.

Cocoa Powder

Salt

Blend the avocados in your food processor until smooth. Add vanilla, maple syrup, coca powder and just a dash of salt. Top with fresh raspberries or strawberries, or make your own puree to top.

Raspberry Puree

Put raspberries in your food processor and blend until it’s your desired consistency.