Milk Replacers, Additives, and The Importance of Water

I had a question on my last post from a reader, Starile, about processing and bad chemicals in commercial milk replacers such as soy, rice and almond milks. My answer is a little too long to place in the comment section, so I'll answer it here. I personally do not use milk replacers at all, and I'll share why.

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Raw Ranch-like Dressing

I was really missing ranch dressing. I'm not vegan, but I use dairy sparingly. All of the non-dairy recipes I could find use tofu and soy milk, things I avoid. So I decided to try using the almonds I had soaking to create a healthier substitute. While nothing replaces the flavor of buttermilk and real mayo, this was a good sub for me. It was thick, creamy, ranch-ish. It satisfied my craving while giving me a boost of heart healthy nutrients rather than a boost of artery clogging fat and cancer promoting animal protein.

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Vegan Three Bean Chili with Spaghetti Squash

It went back down into the 20's last night, winter just doesn't want let go of it's grip here. So I wanted another hearty, filling meal.  Fridays are vegan at my house, and they may soon be raw as well. But not until the weather warms up more. For days like this, I like this 3 bean chili. I love the combination of the hot, spicy chili with the slightly sweet, slightly crisp spaghetti squash, it's very satisfying.

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Raw Chocolate Dip

I eat a lot of fruit for snacks and dessert. This week my sweet tooth kicked in and I wanted something more than just fruit. But I have a to do list as long as my arm, so it needed to be something quick and easy, using ingredients I had on hand.  I also have a love of raw desserts -my favorite is this raw blueberry pie,  and I recently made this raw walnut spice cake that Chris at irawvegan came up with. It was so good it was gone before I could photograph it!  So I came up with this ridiculously simple raw chocolate dip.

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Stuffed Collard Greens

Happy Spring everyone! Even though it doesn't feel like it, spring is officially here. This makes me very happy, and I can put up with the cold much easier when I know it won't last much longer. Since it did turn cold here again, I wanted something warm and filling. Stuffed cabbage sounded good, but loose collard leaves are so much easier to work with. So I stuffed those instead.

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Crockpot Cabbage and Potatoes

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!   I haven't meant to neglect the blog, but this week has been crazy busy at my house. One of my girls became a licensed driver over the weekend, and the other one will become one within the next few weeks. These are scary times for mom!!  Between the road test, going to the insurance office, secretary of state, taking the car she will be driving in to the repair shop to have some things fixed so that it will be extremely safe for her to drive, and taking the other daughter driving so she will be ready for her road test, there hasn't been much spare time. And to top it off the weather has been amazing! When it is this nice out, I can't stay indoors, I must go out and play ;-) So I came up with this simple slow cooker recipe, which also is appropriate  for St. Paddy's day.

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Sweet Potato Soup

I am a long-time fan of Michael Pollan. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.", is very familiar to most of us. I'm not an Oprah fan, but happened to catch part of her show yesterday. I was folding laundry and the t.v. was on in the background. It was a re-broadcast, featuring Michael Pollan and Food Inc. I heard Michael Pollan say "If you eat real food, you don't have to worry about nutrients."   This is my philosophy too.

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Ode to Reusable Bags

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Homemade Vegetable Broth

I make lots of soups, and often use broth to flavor other dishes like rice and quinoa. I realized that I never put up a recipe for homemade broth. It is simple to make, and tastes so much better than store bought. Plus it ensures avoidance of msg, excessive sodium and other nasty additives. And it is very economical, I can make a whole gallon of broth for less than the price of a 1 quart box. I freeze the extra in glass quart canning jars. Once you've made your own vegetable broth, you'll never want to go back to store bought.

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Collard Greens with Adzuki Beans

Potholes are everywhere here. Nearly every road you travel has them. They are so bad in some areas that sometimes it's a case of choosing to drive through the smaller ones in order to miss the huge ones. Yesterday I couldn't avoid hitting a large one and damaged my car, so it's in the shop being repaired today.  It was not a good day for that to happen- my hubby had to go out of town, and I had a lot of driving to do. I dropped my daughter and her friend off at one of the colleges for a seminar/competition in the morning. They needed a ride home in the afternoon. My other daughter didn't get my text message in time to catch the bus after school, so she also needed a ride home. And last night my daughter's orchestra had a concert. In between working all of this out, I needed to come up with a quick dinner. I had planned to shop yesterday, too. Obviously grocery shopping was out, so I had to work with what I had on hand.
A drawer full of collard greens and some cooked adzuki beans filled the bill perfectly.

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Pressure Cooked Refried Beans

Beans are a mainstay around here, I eat them in some form nearly every day. Because they can be time consuming to cook, I often cook large batches and freeze them for use later. When I'm all out, if I've forgotten to soak some overnight, I use lentils instead. Last night I did indeed soak some pinto beans. But today's a busy day and I just didn't have time to stay here while they cooked for hours.  Then it hit me- I have a perfectly good pressure cooker sitting in the basement. I don't know why I forget to use it. So I pulled it out and my beans were done in in under an hour.

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