New Camera and Kitchen

kale salad

It’s massaged dino kale, red leaf lettuce, spinach, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, lemon juice, and a few sundried olives I still have from a long time ago.  Delicious.  :)

The new camera works great.  I just haven’t had many noteworthy meals as of late.  And the lighting in my kitchen in the new place is awesome for photos (except with white bowls, note to self).  Thanks again for the early birthday gift, Tracy!

 

I groan when I see some of my older photos, or photos I chose to put up, but I’m not a professional here.  The point of my search being  Urban Vegan’s cookbook is out in case you missed it. 

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Vegan-Sumptuous-Recipes-Favorites/dp/0762752815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255544906&sr=8-1

And pics of some of the recipes I tested (although other people tested FAR, far more):  http://utopiankitchen.wordpress.com/?s=urban%2Bvegan

Local Summer Treats!

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All tomatoes, basil, and zucchini are local.  I’ve been devouring local apricots, cherries, blueberries, peaches, and greens as well.  If you’re in the Philadelphia area, try to visit the Clark Park or Rittenhouse farmers’ market this weekend!

 

Above is simply basil and tomatoes pureed/pulsed in the food processor over zucchini.

Chopped Salad

Well, just as I got out the camera and turned it on to take a pic of my salad, I realized the camera’s done.  The screen doesn’t function anymore, and while I can take photos, I can’t SEE what I’m taking a photo of.  I don’t know if I dropped it or someone stepped on it.  Doesn’t matter.  It’s good to know before something important came up, like a trip to see family!

My post was simply going to be a recommendation on a way to prepare a salad differently, to chop it up finely.  I use plum tomatoes, jalapeno, minced by hand, add some garlic and lemon juice; then I let the food processor do some magic!  I throw in spinach, basil, cilantro, parsley, collards, red leaf lettuce, chives.  Put in a little at a time and pulse it until it’s finely chopped.  VERY easy and fast!  I believe the flavors can incorporate well this way, too, after you mix everything together.  Your salad will look like tabouli, and you may “trick” (oh, what a negative connotation for giving a person some amino acids!) someone you love into eating collard greens raw.

This, of course, is ONLY if I’m taking a break from my Champagne mango feast.

Orange Barbeque Tofu (cooked)

From Passionate Vegetarian

orange-bbq-tofu

I hate to give this recipe, or any recipe, a bad review, but in my opinion, this is one of the worst sauce recipes I have ever made.  The recipe is called, “Terrible Delicious, Talk-of-the-Town Tofu.”  Sounds great to serve to a bunch of people; right?  Well, the orange rind and juice were overpowering and the sauce too thick.  I think the only thing that’s making this recipe serveable is what I added to it, how I chopped it, and how I’m serving it.  Oh, well.

I’m enjoying fresh orange juice and papaya before heading over to a celebration of The Vegan Twins’ birthday.  :)

Marinated Tomato Salad

Entertaining in the Raw

I added the raw tofu to the salad.  Shown here with pine-nut based parmesan and basil oil.

marinated-tomato-salad

Raw Tamales

Entertaining in the Raw

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I stopped putting these together for a bit to take a picture with the garnish, sour cream and tomato-chile sauce (thick sauce).  The tamale mixture, like most raw foods I’ve found, is much more delicious than any cooked I’ve ever had.  It has corn, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and lime juice.

Cucumber Noodles

cucumber-noodles-plain

Cucumber, tomatoes, and basil = one of my favorite combos ever!

I know I have a lot of noodly stuff going on here.  Perhaps I noticed how lonely my mandoline was, underneath all of the sugars and baking items I rarely use.  :)

Cucumbers are another good fruit to spiralize or turn into pasta shapes.  The tomato-based sauce has sun-dried tomatoes (soaked an hour), fresh tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic, basil, pink salt, and a touch of agave. 

I think if a person has a child who is used to cooked food, these would be a great addition…..and you wouldn’t have that rush of energy that you get after eating cooked pasta.  You know….where you find the whole family at naptime?  ;)

cucumber-noodles-dressed

Zucchini Noodles w/ Parsley Sauce

zucchini-noodles-parsley-sauce-undressed

So I wanted my zucchini noodles with a basil sauce, but the store nearby didn’t have fresh, so I chose Italian, flat-leaf parsley instead.  I did find local grape tomatoes, which was nice! 

The sauce has parsley, tomato, and a little mango juice; whole parsley; garlic; a date; and pink salt.  Very easy, very spunky!  It’s not rich, as there is no oil.  You can add sun-dried tomatoes, too, if you like.

zucchini-noodles-parsley-sauce

FYI, zucchini noodles do get watery as they sit, and combined with a sauce even more.  I’ll take that hydration, though.  :)

You can make the noodles by using a mandoline, spiralizer, peeler, or knife.

Eat to your heart’s content

tomato-zucchini-red-bell-salad

Zucchini, tomato, red bell pepper, and basil salad.  This is a great food-combined salad of non-sweet fruit.

Don’t limit yourself; eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want!  I wouldn’t consider the way I eat (raw food, I mean; not veganism, since that’s a lifestyle) as a “diet” in the sense that most people would.  I just have standards when it comes to food.

You eat three or more times a day.  Can you think of a better category to have standards for than food?

Raw Soup & Wraps – Fun no-recipe preparations

To make things easier, when I feel like throwing something together without a recipe, I first wash all of the vegetables, fruit – good combos below of non-sweet fruit – and sprouts (I even rinse items such as avocado because you cut into the skin, thus taking anything on the skin into the flesh of the fruit).

raw-veggies-soup

For the soup, I juiced 3 carrots, 3 celery, 1/2 of a large cucumber, and half of a lemon.  I added this juice to my Vita-Mix along with my three-seaweed garnish blend, 1 cup of spinach, 1 whole avocado, 2 T. red bell pepper, 2 T. grape tomatoes, 1 c. parsley, and 2 T. basil.  After blending, I poured this into the bowl and then rinsed the Vita-Mix with a tad of water and a few more cherry tomatoes to get more of that good green stuff out, then poured this orange mixture in a pattern around the soup.  The soup is garnished with more grape tomatoes, cucumber & zucchini sticks, chopped red bell pepper, celery, frisee, and mixed sprouts.  I tasted for salt and added a tad of Himalayan pink salt.  

Do check on the nutritional info of parsley if you get a chance; it’s a great source of many vitamins and minerals, including iron.

raw-chard-wraps-2

The wraps have chard as the wrapper.  I washed the chard, then dipped and rubbed it in a fresh lemon juice and flax oil mixture to soften the leaves a bit.  The avocado paste inside is so flavorful, with one avocado, chard stem juice, lemon juice, garlic juice (normally, I don’t eat garlic but the juice was fine for tonight only), 3 T. basil leaves, 1 c. parsley leaves, and a tad of pink salt.  Then the wrap also has grape tomatoes, zucchini, red bell pepper, frisee, and sprouts.  They are so delicious, and I love eating with my hands!

raw-chard-wraps