French Bean & Spelt Berry Salad ~ The Perfect Vegan Meal

I've made it a habit to shop the liquidation stores in town.  We have about four or five in the area and often there are many items I use to cook with that are marked down considerably.  Sometimes the packaging is damaged or the original price was just too high and the items didn't sell well in the local markets.  That is a big deterrent when people are just beginning to incorporate plant based cooking in their diet.  Organic fruits, vegetables, and many products are more expensive in the grocery stores.  It doesn't have to be that way though.

Yes, if you shop in the conventional grocery stores, it will be more expensive to eat whole foods. But, shopping the local farmer's markets and buying what's in season, getting to know the local gardeners and farmers, shopping the discount stores like the liquidation stores, and growing your own veggies, are good ways to keep the cost low.  Many items seem to be more expensive at first glance.  For example, Celtic Sea Salt usually costs about $6-$8 a pound.  But, that pound lasts me for months and months.  I use coconut milk quite often, the only thing I use from a can, and the brand I like is usually $2.29 a can.  I can find it now & then at the liquidation store for sometimes as low as $1 a can.  I usually buy all they have and stock up. I use pre-made organic, low sodium vegetable broth for cooking my beans.  I used to be happy when it was two for $5.  I've found it in the liquidation store as low as ten for $1.

Recently there were a lot of Bob's Red Mill products on the shelf.  I picked up some French beans I'd never seen before, Flageolet Beans, and there was a great recipe right on the back of the bag.  It's the perfect vegan meal, "protein, greens, & grains". The original recipe calls for Kamut berries, but I used some spelt berries I have already.  Any whole grain or combination of grains can be substituted for the Kamut berries such as:  whole oat groats, hull-less whole barley, wheat berries, long grain brown rice, or spelt berries.  I substituted fresh beet greens for the spinach and a fresh white onion from the garden for the green onion.

French Bean & Kamut Berries Salad

2 cups cooked Kamut berries or other whole grains
2 cups cooked Flageolet Beans
1 cup green onions, chopped
1 cup fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 cups spinach or other fresh greens, chopped

Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 TB white wine vinegar (I used organic apple cider vinegar.)
2 TB Dijon mustard
1/4 cup shallots, minced
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Tarragon (I used fresh rosemary)
1 TB fresh parsley, minced
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper.

Soak beans, about 1 cup, overnight.  Drain water and rinse off beans.  Place beans in a pot covered with plenty of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer placing lid on pot.  cook beans until beans are soft, about 1 hour.

Place Kamut or other Spelt berries, about 11/2 cups in a pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and place lid on pot.  Cook until berries are soft, about 1 hour.

While the beans and berries are cooking, mix vinaigrette ingredients together in a large bowl.  Chop veggies and place in bowl.

Drain beans and berries and rinse in cold water. Measure out 2 cups of both the beans and berries and add them to the other ingredients in the bowl.

Blend together  all ingredients and chill for a few hours or overnight.  Serves about 10.

~~Enjoy~~

Roasted Beets, Greens, Millet, and Pine Nuts

I roasted some beautiful fresh organic beets today.

Then I peeled and chopped them in large pieces,

 

tossed them with some lightly steamed greens, rainbow chard, spinach, and beet greens,

caramelized onions, garlic, and red bell pepper,

and some steamed millet.  Millet is a very similar to quinoa. They are difficult to tell apart when not labeled. The quinoa is on the left, the millet on the right of this photo. (I think)  :D

I tossed all this together with some fresh lemon juice, golden balsamic vinegar, pumpkin seed oil, chopped garlic, a tablespoon of red miso, a dollop of grainy mustard, and a dash of shoyu. (no measuring involved, sorry) I also roasted about a handful of pine nuts and added the seeds of half a large pomegranate that needed a home.

We can eat this warm or cold. This will be very good alongside some beans or as a full meal all by itself.

Live Lasagna - Fresh, Local, and In Season

I was inspired by this dish when I planted my garden last year.  I had almost everything to make this dish in my garden last year except the cashews and the garlic.  This year I have homegrown garlic too.  I Can't grow the cashews for the cheeze, but in a couple weeks, I will have most all the ingredients for this lasagna ripe and ready.   I bought some tomatoes and peppers from the local produce store for this one.  They were grown in WA, that's as local as I can get right now and in season.  I've been looking forward to tomatoes this year.  I've been pretty good about not buying them out of season. I have some tomatoes and peppers, but they aren't quite ripe yet. 

Live Lasagna

 This is a raw vegetable lasagna using fresh chard leaves, thinly sliced zucchini, portabello mushrooms, and eggplant as lasagna noodles.  I slice them lengthwise and absorb the moisture between paper towels.

Golden Zucchini slices drying

Portabello Slices drying

The cheeze is made with cashews pureed in filtered water and left in a jar overnight. The next day it's added to: diced red bell pepper, fresh basil, oregano, rosemary, cilantro, green onion, garlic, and jalepeño. It's seasoned with sea salt, shoyu, and a dash of crushed red pepper flakes.  It's creamy and zesty and makes a good cheezy filling.

The sauce is very simple, fresh tomatoes, seeded, olive oil, sea salt, shoyu, freshly ground black pepper, and fresh herbs from my garden, basil, oregano, rosemary, and parsley.  I put all but the herbs in the blender and pureed until smooth.  I stirred in the herbs and let it rest awhile.  When my tomatoes ripen, I'll make batches of this sauce and freeze it.

Once I have all three parts prepared, I put it together just like a lasagna in layers.  First the chard leaves, then the zucchini and eggplant slices, half of the cheeze, the mushroom slices, and then sauce.  I repeat this until the pan is full. 

I made some garlic toast with some garlic I roasted in the oven and a dab of olive oil.

Live Lasagna Close Up

Barley with Tomato, Capers and Kalamata Olives

This is another of the test recipes for The Flexitarian Cookbook.  It is supposed to be made with Farro which is a whole grain similar to wheat berries or barley.  I couldn't find it in town and when I looked it up online it was $11 a pound. Yikes! I substituted pearl barley without a problem.  I really like this grain dish, it's very flavorful with unexpected flavors, as my husband called it.  It's a warm or cold whole grain dish with a zesty flavor and great texture.  It's very easy to make, the prep time for everything except the barley is about 20 minutes.

It's a very simple meal with roasted red peppers, garlic, fresh parsley, fresh tomatoes, capers, and kalamata olives.  I served it on a bed of fresh picked beet greens.  This salad will make future appearances at my house.

Green Onion Griddle Cakes with Cool Gazpacho

I received some more recipes from The Flexitarian Cookbook coming out this fall to test.  They came at the right time for my weekend cooking adventures.  I made a few of the recipes for our meals this week.  Last night I tried the Green Onion Griddle Cakes with a Cool Gazpacho salad.  Our garden is starting to produce daily vegetables, I was able to use a lot of things we grew ourselves, like the onions, parsley, and nasturtiums for this meal.

Onion Potato Pancakes with Cool Gazpacho

This recipe is a different style of making potato pancakes than I have seen before.  It's a combination of mashed potatoes and raw grated potatoes.  I mixed it all in the food processor until it was a nice smooth consistency.  They came out really fluffy and flavorful.  The recipe called for creme fraiche, but I served them with plain soy yogurt.  This is a vegetarian meal as there is an egg in the batter.  The gazpacho is made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, fresh picked onions, garlic, chili oil, and balsamic vinegar.  The recipe directions were to blend it to the desired consistency.  It is supposed to be a soup, but my desired consistency this time was whole vegetables.


Yes, I eat the nasturtiums.  Nasturtiums are a watercress.

Watercress contains significant amounts of iron, calcium and folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and C.  Many benefits from eating watercress are claimed, such as that it acts as a stimulant, a source of phytochemicals and antioxidants, a diuretic, an expectorant and a digestive aid.  It also appears to have cancer-suppressing properties; it is widely believed to help defend against lung cancer.

Back to Basics - Black Beans and Raw Vegetable Salad

Every week I make a pot of beans and a very large salad so we have some healthy "fast-food" options on hand during the busy work week. This week I made a pot of black beans and a fresh, raw vegetable salad. Many of the salad items are now coming from the garden and the farmer's markets. I just love this time of year. Sun or not, the food still represents summer. When I come home some night this week, I can warm up a tortilla and some beans, add some salad, and I have a great vegetarian burrito. That's my kind of :"fast-food."




What's in the salad? Beet greens, zucchini, crookneck squash, red cabbage, red bell pepper, one large jalapeño pepper, chopped roasted fennel bulb, carrots, chopped cucumber, the juice of one orange, 2 medium avocados chopped, about half a cup of roasted pumpkin seeds, and a handful of dried currants.

Sweet Potato Au Gratin

Sweet Potato Au Gratin—Sweet Potatoes, yams, red potatoes, asparagus, red onion, non-dairy bechamel sauce topped with panko bread crumbs mixed with some parmesan cheese and oregano.

Raw Vegetable salad with many fresh vegetables and fresh peas from our garden.  :D

Black Quinoa salad with raw green beans, yellow bell pepper, walla walla onions, chili oil, and lemon juice.

Breakfast - Vegan Strawberry Scones

I was thinking about what I will do with my strawberries this weekend.  I wanted to make some jam, which I did.  I made some freezer jam with 3 cups of sucanat for ten cups of crushed berries.  Much less sugar than conventional jam.  But what kind of fun, healthy snack can I come up with?  I thought about strawberry scones and when looking through the vegan recipes that came up when I searched, I hit on this one Strawberry-Coconut Scones.  I didn't make many changes to the recipe;  I used sucanat for sugars, plain coconut milk yogurt, and coconut milk creamer.  These came out very nice, firm, but flaky and moist, thanks to the chunks of strawberries.

 I served them with the strawberry jam I made yesterday, a fresh fruit salad made with:  mango, bananas, kiwi, sliced strawberries, and a handful of coconut shreds.  I also grilled some strips of sesame garlic tempeh marinated in shoyu. 

Celebration Salad

I've seen this salad in many vegan and whole foods cookbooks. It's a pretty simple salad of fresh carrots and beets. What am I celebrating?  The first fresh vegetables of the season and for us in the Pacific Northwest, we are celebrating sunshine today. Nice warm sunshine.

This is the way Chef Al Chase taught me to make Celebration Salad.  I grated four small to medium red beets, one golden beet I had, and four medium carrots.  To those grated vegetables, I added the juice and zest of one orange, a little flax oil, and a little chili oil, about a tablespoon each.  I added some fresh ground Celtic sea salt and a dash of cayenne pepper.  I usually use chopped parsley, but I didn't have any so I used some fresh cilantro from the garden.  Not too much, about a tablespoon and a half.  It will settle and become juicy and flavorful after chilling overnight.  This salad definitely makes me feel like summer is coming.

Curry, Chickpeas, Onions, and Dried Berries

Another recipe I tried this weekend was very good and so easy.

Curried Chickpeas with Sweet Onions and Pomegranate

I cooked some chickpeas in a 'splash' of oil. (That's what the recipe said, 'splash.') When the chickpeas were getting brown I added some chopped onion and garlic and cooked a little longer. I mixed a half cup of plain Greek yogurt with some sea salt and some curry powder. Mixed them all together and added a half cup of coarse chopped dried cranberries and blueberries. The recipe called for pomegranate seeds, but they aren't in season. I had some dried fruit so I soaked some dried cranberries and blueberries in a little lemon juice and water to add some tartness and texture.

Millet, Quinoa, & Peas - Seaweed Spectacular Salad

Pretty easy meal last night, Quinoa, Millet, caramelized onions, a little flax oil, some frozen organic peas, and pan roasted almond slivers, served on a cabbage leaf. A whole grain serving at only 133 calories per serving. It's another 'healthy snack day' at work. This is my contribution.

Millet, Quinoa, & Peas

Antioxidant Seaweed Spectacular Salad - A recipe I got to test for the Flexitarian Cookbook coming out soon. Sea vegetables, spinach, orange, red, & yellow peppers with a nice dressing made of seaweed, sesame oil, garlic, and miso.

Antioxidant Seaweed Spectacular Salad