Labor Day Vacation and 70 pounds of Tomatoes

A lovely week, busy, but lovely.  I began Wednesday afternoon stopping by the grocery store one last time and then home to prepare for my second plant based cooking class at Country Village.  I should say I started Tuesday night as I got to go out to Ruth & Mike's organic farm and help pick the produce I needed for my class.  I started working at home Wednesday about 4:00 p.m. getting fresh kale in the dehydrator, sauces prepared ahead, three chocolate cakes baked, and various spices and supplies marked and ready to go.  I finally stopped about 11:45. Up early frosting chocolate gluten free cake, shredding zucchini, and making cauliflower rice.  I had 38 people signed up for the class and I'm already learning that means I'll have about 24 people, so I prepared for 30.  It's nice to have some samples for the store employees too.  It's a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it.  Took it slow, taking a few tea breaks along the way and just getting it done.  I smiled to myself a couple times when I remembered I was "working at home" which is the long term goal.

 The class was a whole lot of fun.  Twenty three people attended to learn some tips about plant based cooking along with some nutritional information.  It went very smoothly, didn't seem like we forgot anything important. There were some great discussions. A couple people even came in from the store, curious about what was going on, paid and sat in on the class. I learned that I should find a way to cook in the fall.  Based on the comments I requested, many people would like to know more about cooked vegan cuisine.  I've purchased a couple induction burners.  I am hoping they'll work for the class.  It would be fun to do some cooked root dishes in the fall.  We might schedule an all-day class on a Saturday, we'll see.  The most important thing is that we all had a good time and I'm welcome to do another class. Woo Who!

Sharing Some Fresh Garden Stevia

Friday came with some oral surgery and sleep through most of the day.

Saturday we enjoyed a leisure morning and picked up our Kaylee for a day of fun.  We stopped by the garden for some weeding and watering and then off to Sauve Island to enjoy the Blackberry & Bluegrass Festival and giant corn maze.  They had given us tickets when we bought the peaches so we thought it a good way to spend a sunny day with Kaylee.

 A little fine face painting.

It was a good family fun event.  Lots of space, not too crowded,  and vegan and vegetarian choices at the food trucks too.  We enjoyed a roasted eggplant gyro and a felafel gyro.  The corn maze was pretty fun, but it was way too big for me.  It spanned 2 and a half miles and wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  Kaylee thought grandma and grandpa were giving up because we finally went out the entrance.  We were in there quite awhile and based on the checkpoints we saw, we traveled quite a bit.  I did feel like an older grandma after a bit.  That doesn't happen very often.

We stopped by Proper Eats on the way home for a bowl of broccoli bisque and I was feeling quite winded.  I think it was probably too much fun after my Friday adventure at the dentist.  Sunday I took it easy, read, napped, and relaxed in the sun.


After a full day of rest, I was ready to tackle the 70 lb of tomatoes I had gathered over the weekend from our garden, 50 lb organic heirlooms from Willow Grove Gardens, and 20 lb of beautiful big heirlooms I picked up at Bella Organic Farm.  I packed the big heirlooms with fresh rosemary and lemon juice.  30 lb of the small organic red heirlooms I roasted with onions and garlic, then removed their skins and simmered them all with some fresh oregano and rosemary until thickened for a nice tomato sauce.  I got about 12 jars of the sauce.  Then I canned some of the nice big red ones and dehydrated about 10 lb of the smaller ones.  It sounds like a lot of work, but I went at it very slow, systematically, and I was done by 5:15 p.m.  I even found time to put together a black bean enchilada casserole.  I still have time to do this blog and relax before bed. Nice Monday!

 

Vegan Black Bean Casserole with Homemade Cashew Cheddar Cheeze

It's been a full and productive week.  I'm feel rested and ready to head back to work where we'll be "ramping it up" with the month end work, then the planning fun ahead. 

Summer Day with My Sweetie

We had the most awesome day Friday.  It started out very early for me.  I went to work at 5:30 a.m.  so I could take a half day off to go out to Sauve's Island to get our peaches this year.  I am fortunate to be able to do that sometimes. Scott's business was closed for the weekend and he had the time off. The temperature was supposed to get up to 100º or more.  We don't have days like that very often, glad to be able to take advantage of it. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy this summer day while it was here.  Lucky thing too, Saturday and Sunday were both cloudy days.  We slowly meandered our way to Sauve's Island stopping a few times to hike around and take some photos along the way.  It did get up to 105º at one point, but we didn't notice it so much as we found plenty of places to grab some shade.

When we got out to the Island the sun was at it's highest, we stopped to take some photos of some very impressive cabbage and took advantage of the sprinklers.

In the 23 years we've lived in the pacific northwest, this is only the second time we've explored Sauve's Island.  There were some beautiful and creative farms.  I especially enjoyed the farm with all the old trucks turned into planters.  There was a blue one, a red one, a yellow one, and a white one.  There was other old farm equipment with gorgeous flowers everywhere you looked.

We found an organic farm, Bella Organic Farm and ordered our peaches before we arrived.  They had ten boxes of fresh picked peaches waiting for us.  That's 200 pounds, eighty for me, eighty for Rachel, and forty for Ruth. We'll can about half of them, freeze some, and dehydrate some.  I like peach cobbler in November. We picked up some other items in the farm store and explored the grounds.  They've got a HUGE corn maze.  The friendly woman at the store gave us tickets for their Blackberry Bluegrass and Country Harvest Festival on Labor Day weekend.  It looks like fun, we do like outdoor music festivals.  They've got a pretty impressive corn maze as well as a hay maze for the kid's.  We saw one of the employee's making many scarecrows and dressing them up for the big opening of the corn maze. I think it might be a good trip with Kaylee.

We ended the day out at Willow Grove delivering the two boxes of peaches Ruth & Mike wanted for their CSA shares this weekend.  We stopped at the beach to take in just a little bit more sunshine. 

And those peaches... were canned the very next day.

Collard Wraps with Mango Ginger Sauce

Even though I've spent a great portion of my time out in the garden the last four years, I am  still a new gardener.  Combine a little inexperience with my every cluttered brain, I do get some things confused.  Our cabbage patch is doing great and the plants are getting huge.  Due to the wet and cloudy weather the actual cabbage heads have been slow to form.  The plants have some really large outer leaves.  Most are coming in but these two plants just didn't seem to be making a cabbage head.  After working around them a little more, it dawned on me that they were collard greens, duh!  No wonder there's no cabbage.  I got to work harvesting those wonderful collards right away.  Going over to Rachel's the next day, they will make a great addition to whatever she and I come up with for dinner.

On the way home from the garden Friday night we stopped at the market where I found a very nice rice, grain, and lentil mix in the bulk foods.  It has a variety of grains: barley, spelt, wheat berries, quinoa, two kinds of lentils, black and brown rices.  I scooped some up and took it home.  We're headed out to Rachel's and Damon's on the island the next day for our cherry canning day and when I go out to Rachel's I usually throw whatever vegetables and fruits are around in a box, some favorite cooking ingredients, and my favorite knife.  She's a whole foods cook also, a very good one too, and between the two of us and whatever is in season, she and I come up with a pretty fantastic meal together without any pre-planning.

When I got there I steamed up the rice and grain mixture and set it aside.  I cooked it the same way I do rice, but since it has whole grains, it cooks just a little longer than rice, about 50 minutes.

I had a couple nice ripe mangoes at home so I brought those with me.  While the rice cooked I whipped up a very simple Mango Ginger Sauce in the food processor. 

Mango Ginger Sauce

     The 30-Minute Vegan's Taste of the East

½ small mango, chopped (¼ cup)

1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes or ½ teaspoon seeded and minced hot chili pepper

1 tablespoon water or more for desired consistency

1 ½ teaspoons freshly squeezed lime juice

¼ teaspoon soy sauce, or to taste

Maple syrup or agave nectar to taste

Place all ingredients in blender or food processor and blend until smooth. 

Next, I lightly stir fried some fresh vegetables in a little toasted sesame oil.  The first veggies from the garden this year: zucchini, red onion, peas, and garlic scapes.  I added some fresh paddy pan squash and carrots I picked up at the farmers market, about a half cup of fresh pineapple, and a splash of tamari.

Then I put it all together.  I gently washed and dried the collard greens and brushed them with a little garlic chili flax oil to soften them.

 

I added a scoop of the grain and rice mixture and a couple tablespoons of the mango ginger sauce, a serving of the stir fry vegetables, some fresh cucumber and carrot sticks, and a slice of avocado.

Collard Wraps

I wrapped them up and set them on the grill for just a few minutes, just enough until the collards were bright green and a little crispy.  Served with some mango ginger sauce for dipping, these were an ideal summer treat during a long day of canning. 

Vive Beñe

Canning Cherries ~ Summer Fun in The PNW

It's definitely summer and the local fruits and veggies are beginning to show up in abundance.  I like to store lots of them for the winter months while they are 'in season' and fresh.  Much of the fruit and veggies we can get locally I freeze, dehydrate, or can.  I've already got about 50 pounds of strawberries in the freezer and dried, some cherries, and blueberries too.  In the next few weeks I'll get about 100 lb of tomatoes and peaches canned.  I ran out of tomatoes about a month ago.  I can hardly wait for them to begin ripening.

Got together with Rachel and Allison yesterday for a full day of canning cherries and fun in the kitchen.  We canned about 60 pounds of Washington Bing and Rainier cherries.  Rachel whipped up some cherry lavender jam using  dried Stevia for a sweetener.  She also pureed some fresh raspberries and blueberries and added a bit of lemon zest to be used in ice creams and sauces.  No sweetener was added to the raspberry and blueberry puré.  That way they can be used tart or sweetened later. The cherries don't have any added sugar either, just a bit of stevia in some water with lemon juice and a bit of red wine.

How many cooks can you fit in a 'single wide' kitchen?  We did great considering the space we worked in.  Special thanks goes to Scott, he was a great cherry washer, cherry stoner, stem plucker and photographer.

Summer Made it to the PNW - Garden Update

Summer finally made it to the Pacific Northwest.  It usually rains on the fourth of July, but this year the sunshine came out to play.  This makes three years in a row it's rained just about daily throughout the spring.  It was a pleasure to walk around town and see the smiles on peoples faces as they walked around in sandals and shorts.  I could hear lawn mowers, motorcycles, airplanes, and other various outdoor toys.  We shared a pretty good family Saturday beginning with a morning yoga class, a romp to the farmer's market, a fun lunch and a little playtime at Lake Sacajawea with Kaylee. 

The garden is thrilled about the sunshine too.  I've wandered out there after work a few times disappointed at the lack of growth due to all the rain.  It seems we've been planting and digging for awhile now.  We spent our usual time out pulling weeds and planting the last of the seeds this weekend and I started to find some surprises.  The plants seem to be standing tall right now and enjoying the warmth.  I'm started to see evidence of vegetables now.  I've got some little zucchinis and crookneck squash.  The corn is almost knee high. I can see carrot tops, beet greens, and potato flowers popping up now. I even found a tomato I wasn't expecting while trimming the dead leaves.

Oh yes, we have put up the girls in the garden too.  Isabelle and Molly are happy to be out in the sunshine too.

We're expected to have some really nice days for quite awhile now. I expect the garden to be getting taller and greener by the day.  I don't need shoes in the garden now, Lovin' it!

Garden Update

It's been awhile since I shared a garden update.  We've been out every chance we can get turning the soil and planting our garden.  We're almost planted.  We've got one more section in the back to turn, but we're running out of room now.  Friday afternoon I planted:  eight ball zucchini, delicata squash, broccoli, jalepeños, Thai chilies, some more flowers, & basil.  Yesterday we planted: three or four kinds or tomatoes, persimmons, yellow paddy pan squash, crookneck squash, zucchini, Anaheim peppers, mustard greens, and fennel. We only have one more section to plant. Hopefully we'll get potatoes and collard greens soon, and some more flowers :)

The artichokes have come in healthier than I've ever seen them.  It's the third year for these plants and I've counted more than ten artichokes already on two plants.  There are lots of herbs coming in and the chard made it through the winter.  I love it that we can take something home when we've just begun the harder work of gardening.  The ground was really tough and muddy this year.  It took awhile to get out there in our wet spring, but we managed to get a lot in. 

Community Vegan Vegetarian Potluck March 23

Flower Arrangements by Christy Payton

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I bought myself some new cooking tools, ceramic knives.  They're very nice, and, at first, pretty affordable.  As my friend said "They came with an expensive training manual." They got a little more expensive as I ended up needing a little medical attention. I got a little careless and tried to slice the top of my left index finger off like a carrot.  A few stitches and some swelling, it hasn't been very comfortable to use the computer.  Healing, now I can catch up posting some of the great dishes I've been making.  I have since broken down and purchased a cutting glove.  I'm using it too.

First thing I should do is share about our great local potluck.  We've been holding it for a year now in Longview and it's becoming a regular local event.

Our local vegan/vegetarian potluck keeps getting better.  Last week we had 45 people and for the first time, ran out of chairs.  Everywhere I looked people were tasting, chatting about the food, and sharing ideas with each other.  It really was an enjoyable potluck. The food is getting more and more adventurous.  We had some awesome dishes like the General Tso's tofu Felicia brought, or Linda's chocolate mousse with cashew creme. Three of our diners were celebrating their birthday's the same night.  Nice that they wanted to spend their birthdays with us.

Here's some of the great dishes we got to sample and learn about.

Stir Fry Carrots
Veggie Pizza
General Tso Tofu
Cheezy Spicy Kale Chips
Vegan Buttermilk Cupcakes with Vegan Chocolate Frosting
Hazelnut Banana Gâteau de Crêpes
Raw Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Blueberry Coconut Frosting
Homemade Vegan "Sausage" with Sauteed Peppers & Onions
Green Salad with Vegan Ranch Dressing, made with vegan sour cream
Mango Sweet Potato Salad
Vegetarian Fruit Salad ~ Fruit Salad with Greek Yogurt
Tomato Mung Bean Salad
Persian Eggplant Stew
Oven Roasted Root Vegetables
Vegetable Barley Bake
Berry Pie
Vegan Pizza
Vegan Spaghetti with Zucchini Tomato Sauce
Vegan Coleslaw
Quinoa Salad
Chocolate Beet Cupcakes
Baked Apples with caramel sauce

and much more...
 

Seitan Stifado

The second recipe Barb sent for me to try last week was a Stifado.  Stifado dishes are stews, and they are easy to recognize: they include onions - a lot of onions. The most commonly used are whole small boiler or pearl onions, but larger onions can be used as well, and the quantity is often equal in weight to the main ingredient.

Stifado dishes can be made with meat, poultry, seafood, game, or another vegetable as the central ingredient, with onions, wine or vinegar, tomato, and a selection of spices (often including cinnamon) creating a flavorful base. Generally made on the stove-top, there are a few stifado variations that can be made in the oven. I started mine on the stove-top and simmered it on low in the crock-pot for three hours.

I don't remember having or making stifado before, but Barb loved it and sent me her mom's recipe so I thought I'd try it.  I had most of the ingredients, I think the only thing I had to purchase was the seitan and the wine.  I wanted to make it 'vegan style' and  wasn't sure what I would use for a meat substitute.  I had thought about super firm tofu, but then I saw seitan in stew meat size chunks in the cooler at the market.  The seitan worked out great.


It's a rich stew, I am usually a bit leery of Greek cuisine when we go out as I haven't liked some of the strong flavors. I enjoyed the gravy for this stew, but did think it might be a little strong for my husband's taste.  I was tasting it while cooking though and I think by itself it was a little strong. Combined with the roasted red potatoes, I was pleasantly surprised, it's a really nice dish.  I love the color and it made the house smell pretty wonderful while it was simmering too. I think I'll make this with a zucchini or summer squash and a nice vinegar instead of the wine when the vegetables are happening in the summer.

I didn't change this recipe much except to replace stew meat with seitan.  I roasted some red potatoes to pour it on and served it with a fresh green salad of:  chard, collards, kale, red bell pepper, kalamata olives, some roasted and steamed kaniwa seeds, splash of pumpkin seed oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper.  The greens for the salad were picked fresh from my garden. Not out of the ordinary except that it is February.  It's not usually dry enough to get out to the garden, but we have had some warm dry days, it's been very refreshing.

Gert's Stifado, Vegan Style 

1 lb seitan, cut into bite size chunks
Olive oil or your favorite cooking oil, I used hazelnut oil

3 cloves, crushed

3 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick, cut in half

1 teaspoon allspice

1 can tomato paste

1 1/2 cups red wine

3 pounds small onions, I just used 4 very large onions chopped large

In a heavy pan brown seitan over high heat in a couple tablespoons oil, add garlic, bay leaves, cinnamon, and allspice, stir well. Add tomato paste and wine with 1 cup water.  Set aside.

Saute the onions in olive oil until golden brown and then add to the sauce, cover and simmer on very low heat for 2 to 3 hours until seitan and onions are tender.

During the cooking process the sauce should cover the seitan and onions.  Add more water, if necessary.  Sauce should be thick when ready.

Gert's Moussaka, Vegan Style

While chatting with a my lifelong friend/sister, Barb, on Facebook the other day she mentioned a couple of her mom's family recipes, Moussaka and Stifano.  I think of Moussaka as a Greek lasagna, usually made with eggplant and ground meat, lamb or beef.  It has layers of potatoes, a tangy tomato meat sauce, cheese, and a generous amount of creamy béchamel sauce poured on top of the layers, and topped with cheese.

Gert was one of my favorite mom's growing up.  She had a wide range of talents and great stories to tell of her life experiences.  We remained friends as I became an adult.  I'd come to visit Barb unannounced and if she was not home it wasn't a problem.  I was at home there and stayed anyway. Sometimes Gert & I would crack open a bottle of wine and talk through the night.  I was more at home at her house than my own parents' house. She lost the battle with stomach cancer some years ago and I do think about her from time to time and miss her. Gert was a lot of fun to be around.  She has lived all over the world and when she made an authentic ethnic dish, it was authentic.  I don't think she'd mind what I did with her family recipe. I also made a vegan version of her Stifano, a Greek beef stew, using stew meat size seitan pieces.  I'll be posting that later.  Simmering for three hours in the crock-pot, this dish made my house smell wonderful.

My version of Gert's Moussaka, vegan style.

2 Large eggplants, sliced 1/2" thick
1 14 oz. tube Gimme Lean ground beef style veggie protein - I think Soy curls would work well for this dish
3-4 small zucchini, sliced
1 1/2 pounds red potatoes
1 cup organic Panko breadcrumbs
Cooking oil such as Olive, I used hazelnut oil
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 ounces tomato sauce, I just blended my home canned tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped dried parsley
small sprig of fresh rosemary
fresh thyme leaves, about 1 teaspoon
1/2 cup red wine
about 1/2 - 3/4 cup Daiya mozzarella style vegan cheese
sea salt and ground pepper to taste

Béchamel Sauce:

1/2 cup, 1 stick, vegan margarine, I used Earth Balance organic
1/2 cup spelt flour
3 cups non dairy milk
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
pinch of nutmeg
sea salt & pepper to taste

Slice and cook the potatoes in a small amount of water for ten minutes or until just tender, al denté.  Set aside.

Peel and slice the eggplant and the zucchini and toss them with a little sea salt.  Then I put them in the dehydrator for an hour or so to let the moisture evaporate.  If you don't have a dehydrator, you can put the slices between paper towels and weight with another plate for an hour or more.

While the eggplant is drying, prepare the 'meat' sauce.  Dice or crumble the veggie protein which looks a lot like ground beef and brown it in a couple tablespoons of oil.  Then add the diced onions, garlic, sea salt, and pepper.  When the meat was brown and onions tender add the cinnamon, nutmeg, herbs, and tomato sauce.  Stir well, add the wine, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring a couple times.

The eggplant can be steamed, or sauteed with or without a breading.  I chose to dip them in some egg replacer and dredged in a little spelt flour.  Then I gently fried them in a little hot oil just until they were golden, not very long.  Then put them aside on a paper towel until I needed them.  I suppose when I have fresh picked eggplant from the garden I could just put the slices 'as is' without any prior cooking. But, since I used eggplant from the market which is probably not so fresh, it needed some tenderizing first.

Lightly oil a 9" x 13" pan and sprinkle the panko bread crumbs in the bottom.  Leave a small space around the edges of the pan so the bechamel sauce can ooze over the sides of the dish. Make the first layer with the sliced potatoes.  Top with a layer of eggplant slices, add the tomato 'meat' sauce, sprinkle with the shredded Daiya cheese.  Add the zucchini slices next.  Top with a layer of eggplant slices.

Preheat the oven to 350º and make the béchamel sauce.

Béchamel Sauce

Melt the vegan margarine.  Using a whisk, add the flour to the melted margarine whisking continuously to make a smooth rue.  Allow the mixture to cook for a minute but do not allow it to turn brown.  Add non dairy mild in a steady stream, whisking continuously.  Simmer over low heat until it thickens a bit but does not boil.  Remove from heat, and stir in turmeric, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Pour the béchamel sauce over the eggplant and be sure to allow sauce to fill the sides and corners of the pan.  Smooth the bechamel on top and sprinkle remaining cheese.  Bake in 350º oven for 45 minutes or until sauce is a nice golden brown color.  Allow to cool for 15 - 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Most of this dish can be made ahead of time, but it's best to make the béchamel sauce right before you intend to bake it.

Enjoy, I am going to go have some right now.

Happy Holidays ~ Home Made

The last gift is wrapped, all the cookies are done, plated, and on their way to friends and family.  I just got word the kids in California got their Christmas from grandma, I can stop worrying about that. I have a four day weekend coming up, and I'm ready.  I think we'll spend Christmas morning watching the sunrise from a nice hilltop playing with our camera. I think we may have done that last year.  That's one of the benefits of keeping pictures in this blog and Facebook, I can look back and find out what we did last year.

This year most all the presents I gave are hand made by myself, a local artist, or thrift store items headed for a new life.  I made some U-Bake Cookies and Lentil soup mix in jars, a great idea I got from Care2 make a difference.  Marty, who I am thrilled is home this year, helped me bake cookies so he could gift some to his friends.  He made the oatmeal cookies, which was a great way to spend some time with him.  I also got some practice instructing instead of doing the baking. I kind of like being on that side of the recipe.  That was fun.  We tie dyed the cardamon sugar cookies too.  I started with one just to see how it would work and then the fun was on.  I called my husband into the kitchen and told him to try it, we had a great time tie dying our cookies and using different techniques to get the patterns flowing.

 Vegan Cookies for Christmas

Cardamon Sugar Cookies with Meyer Lemon Glaze
Raw Almond Butter Cookies
Almond Crescents
Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Carrot Ginger Oat Cookies
Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip with Buckwheat Flour
Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Dried Asian Pears with Cinnamon and Nutmeg

Holiday Crafts at Grandma's House

We squeezed in a little holiday fun together too this weekend.