i figure if you even looked at yesterday’s post you should probably go eat some greens, pronto! here’s the one that i ate immediately after taking down a few of those ridiculously tasty banana treats (all sugar guilt absolved!). this salad combines my love of spicy and sweet. it’s simple but the flavor is incredible. here’s what you need: caramelized onions, pear, arugula, lemon juice, sea salt. the trick to this salad lies in the onion… liberal seasoning (sea salt, pepper and red pepper flakes for spice), and a verrrrrrrry slow cooking time in a generous amount of refined coconut oil to caramelize them and bring out the sweetness in the onion. mix together arugula, onions, chopped pear and then sprinkle sea salt on all. Squeeze lemon juice onto the whole shebang until it’s dressed and serve immediately!
i wish i had a more condensed name for these, but unfortunately i was too hopped up on SUGAR and JOY to come up with one when i wrote this post. these, my friends, are heaven on earth…in your mouth. sweet, salty, chocolatey OMGoodness. they’re more work than my average recipe, and especially challenging because you can’t have a craving and whip them up all impulsive-like. you have to crave them, start making them on night one, and then MAYBE, if you’re lucky and your freezer works well, be able to enjoy them the next day at lunch. but i promise you, you will be so SO happy when you do.
be forewarned: i made these once using the amounts from this recipe…. then realized that’s WAY too much (especially for one family of two, neither of which have even the slightest bit of self control around sugar). as much as i would have loved re-making this recipe for the sake of blogging it, i didn’t {if i had you can be assured that my 1st chin would be resting comfortably on a newfound second}. SO, these measurements are based on my first over-excited go ’round and are only approximations- you may end up with extra peanut butter filling or chocolate (in which case you could throw together a few of these! recipe below
the what:
6 bananas
3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup earth balance vegan butter
1/4 cup +2 tablespoons cup crunchy peanut butter (organic, unsalted, no added sugar)
1/4 cup (heaping) cup graham cracker crumbs (i found an organic, naturally sweetened kind at whole foods that did the trick)
1/2 cup turbinado raw sugar or other granulated sweetener
sea salt or maldon salt flakes- i tried both and loved them equally
the how:
the night before: prepare peanut butter filling by mixing earth balance vegan butter, sugar, graham cracker crumbs and peanut butter in a pan and melting together. Once thoroughly mixed, let cool and then place in a bowl in the fridge to harden for the next day’s banana sculpting extravaganza.
- cover a cookie sheet (must fit in your fridge or freezer) with wax paper
- cut bananas into 1/2-3/4″ slices (if you have a shortage of freezer or fridge room, you may want to do these in batches (i did!)
- using a knife and your fingers, make little caps for the bananas with peanut butter filling (see photo above for a tasty ratio)
- combine vegan chocolate chips and almond milk and heat over low until melted (stirring all the while)
- i set up a production line for this next part at our dining room table with all my peanut buttered bananas on my left, the pot of melted chocolate directly in front of me (DANGER!) and the wax paper covered cookie sheet to my right.
- place a banana slice on your fork and then dip into chocolate (do not spear the banana). use a spoon to pour melted chocolate over top until all of the banana and peanut butter are covered.
- once all of your banana slice have been coated, sprinkle each one with sea salt and pop them into the freezer. once they’ve hardened you can transfer them to any freezer safe container. eat them freely!
first and foremost, thank you all so much for the kind words yesterday- it was an amazing experience reading your tweets, comments, facebook messages and emails. in these moments i’m truly reminded that we’re all in this together. and that, my friends, is why i have this blog.
now, something tasty for your weekend! this quinoa tabbouleh is grain and gluten free (if you want to read an incredible story about how cutting out gluten changed one amazing woman’s life, please head over here). it’s also really, really, really ridiculously good tasting. like, omg. i make a giant batch because we love it so much (so feel free to halve it on your first go-round to test it out….the wishing there was more when it’s gone will make the laborious onion chopping the next time around that much easier!). i serve it with this baba ghanoush or hummus, cucumber, kalmatta olives and toasted pita chips (slice pita into triangles, lightly brush with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, bake at 400 degrees until crispy). SO GOOD!
happy weekend my friends, see you monday! {recipe below}
the what:
3 cups cooked quinoa (i used tri color, but any kind will do!)
1 cup chopped chopped cucumber
1 cup finely chopped red onion
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup rough chopped kalmata olives
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh, of course!)
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
sea salt
pepper
the how:
- chop onions, tomatos, olives and cucumber. combine in a large bowl with the cooked (and cooled!) quinoa. (how-to cook quinoa here)
- chop parsley, mint, garlic and combine in a seperate bowl with olive oil, lemon juice and a pinch of sea salt and pepper.
- add dressing slowly to quinoa salad- taste as you go until you’ve found your preferred amount of dressing to salad.
so it’s been a little over a year since this happened, which is really the thing that pushed me into learning how to cook. and in looking over the past year i am amazed by how much has changed for me in the kitchen. here are a few of my thoughts…
- this seems obvious but i hadn’t thought about it: cooking is like everything, you get better with practice and the more you put into it the more you get out of it. ANYONE can learn to cook and can develop their creativity in the kitchen. i was intimidated by what i didn’t know and learning to cook seemed like a daunting task. but like everything, one foot in front of the other…
- i used to envy people that could just throw together a meal with whatever they had in their fridge, but now that i’m {closer to being} one of those people i understand that it’s not a talent you’re born with. since i didn’t have the first clue about cooking, i used recipes for every meal. but with each new recipe i gained a few new tricks {understanding about what flavors work well together, different cooking techniques, new ingredients, etc}. all of this knowledge allows me to be more creative in the kitchen and that’s where spontaneity comes in.
- recipes are a starting point that need tweaking and adjusting. i used to believe that if i followed a recipe word for word, i’d be guaranteed delicious results. but now i understand that flavors in ingredients can vary depending on the freshness, brand, age, quality, etc so i make sure to taste and tweak along the way! i read somewhere that if you’re still hungry when you sit down to eat you haven’t done your job- and i totally agree!
- you can’t succeed without failing first. this is my mantra in the kitchen. i’ve cooked so many bad meals. i’ve had to scrap entire dishes. we’ve eaten our fair share of so-so dinners and over-something meals. but without this willingness to fail, i never would have invented up some of the things we love most! messing up in the kitchen is a necessary part of the learning process and something that should be embraced. laugh it off, order take-out and move on to the next one! *just make sure you’re not experimenting on nights when you’re having guests- i’ve done that and it’s a recipe for an anxiety attack!
i hope this helps inspire some of you who are new to cooking to be a little less intimidated and see it as something fun! if you have any tips for those who are just learning to cook, please do share!
last night i got ambitious and did two things i’ve never done but always wanted to: 1. roasted tomatoes 2. made polenta. and now i’m left wondering, what the hell have i been doing with my life?! roasted tomatoes are the bomb. and this polenta is like a salty, creamy, warm corn pudding. OMG.
this recipe is a tiny bit more work than i usually put into a meal, but doesn’t require lots of ingredients or planning. and it was totally easy and satisfying so we’ll be having it for dinner many times again and i’m excited to see how i can tweak it to make it even better in the future! oh, and heads up: this recipe makes enough for a family dinner. or in our case, lots of leftovers!
the what:
4 cups of vegetable stock
2 cups of water
2 cups of coarse polenta (not quick cooking)
1 cup of rice milk (or other unsweetened non-dairy milk)
2 tablespoons of earth balance vegan butter
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
thyme
black pepper
sea salt
6 vine ripened tomatoes, cut in half
the how:
- preheat oven to 350 degrees. slice tomatoes in half and arrange on a baking sheet.
- sparingly drizzle olive oil over tomatoes, place two sprigs of thyme on each tomato half and sprinkle sea salt and pepper on the tomatoes.
- bake tomatoes for 1 – 1 1/2 hours, flipping every 15 minutes (they just get better the longer they roast)
- during the last 1/2 hour the tomatoes are baking: bring vegetable stock and water to a boil and slowly whisk in polenta. reduce heat and continue to stir until the polenta has thickened. cover and let simmer until soft (10-20 minutes).
-stir in earth balance vegan butter, rice milk, and season with sea salt and pepper to taste (don’t be timid with the salt, this dish needs it!) stir and cook a few minutes more.
- when the tomatoes are done, serve over a bowl of polenta and sprinkle thyme over both.
*as a last minute addition to mine, i added a tablespoon of chopped kalmatta olives to the polenta. DELISH!
if you cook polenta i’d love to hear what you do with it! i’m looking forward to seeing what other yumminess will come!
i saved up my american express rewards points and treated us to a fancy pants blender (it’s called vitamix and i think it’ll go up against any blender on the market and win, no matter what the middle of the night infomercials tell you). it’s AMAZING!!! i’m accustomed to blenders that barely blend, get stuck every few seconds and never turn out a truly chunk-free smoothie.
my first venture into pro smoothie making was a lazy-girls version of this one. so good! i know green smoothies are even more healthy and hugely popular right now, so yesterday i added a couple leaves of dino kale and….YUCK! ACK! UGH! i know ya’ll aren’t drinking this nastiness, so please do tell….what are your green smoothie secrets? please, fill me in! wishing you a weekend with lots of yumminess & good sleep (and only delicious smoothies). xo
