Cashew French Toast (vegan and soy-free)

In an effort to reduce the amount of soy in our diet (it just felt like too much) I came up with this recipe. I didn't do anything brilliant - mostly just found a recipe for cashew french toast and combined it with our usual tofu french toast recipe to get the same great flavours.

Cashew French Toast

ingredients

2 cups cashews (soaked if time allows)

3/4 cups almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 TBSP maple syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

dash salt

~10 pieces of soft whole wheat sandwich bread, stale or lightly toasted

oil for pan frying

Put all ingredients except the bread and oil in blender and blend, add a little more milk if it seems too thick.

Dip the bread in the mixture, if there's lots of excess scrape it off.

Fry in oil on medium heat.

Serve with maple syrup.

PS - Happy St. Patrick's Day from Henry. We went out for dinner in uptown and afterward walked around the festivities (the weather was beautiful and it is a university town so there were a lot of party-ers out and about). And Henry had a wonderful time. One woman gave him a little hat and once he had the hat everyone loved him. He ran all around the main public square. He danced to a man playing a drum. Another woman danced with him and gave him a necklace. He was a little nervous about the attention sometimes but mostly he was having so much fun and was very interested in the people.

Chia Seed Chocolate Pudding

This recipe for chocolate pudding is so easy and tasty and good for you it's crazy. The taste and texture is just exactly like a really good chocolate pudding. I haven't tried it in a regular old blender, even with my vitamix there is a slight gritty texture that you only notice when you think about it so not sure how well a regular blender would do.

Chocolate Pudding

1 cup almond milk (or any milk)

1/3 cup chia seeds

1 ripe banana

2 TBSP agave nectar or other sweetener

2 TBSP cocoa powder (or cacao to make it a raw food)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend! (Soaking the chia seeds in the milk beforehand might help with blending.) Might be a little warm after blending so place in refrigerator for an hour or so.

Makes 2 servings.

And here are some pictures of Henry feeding the ducks yesterday. We had a crazy warm day (up to 9C!) and spent all afternoon outside.

Soy-free Vegan Creamy Pasta Recipe

I want to share this new recipe that I've come up with and am quite proud of. It is delicious and super healthy - overflowing with vegetables. Oh and it's super easy to make too. I adapted it from this vegan alfredo recipe that I've been using for years. Since I'm cutting back on our soy consumption recently I wanted to try to make this recipe soy free. It tastes just as good as ever and now contains more veg! Makes a generous amount of sauce for one box of pasta.

Ingredients

Sauce

1 1/2 cups cashews or almonds or a mix soaked in water for 4 hours or more

1 1/2 - 2 cups chopped cauliflower, steamed till soft

2 cloves garlic

1 cup almond milk

4 TBSP olive oil

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

~375 g of pasta

optional

~1 lb mushrooms, chopped

a bunch of chopped spinach, fresh or frozen

Directions

Start sautéing the mushrooms in a large pan and cooking the spinach and cooking the pasta. While they're going make the sauce:

Drain the nuts. Place all sauce ingredients in a blender and blend well. When the mushrooms are done add the sauce and the spinach to the pan, mix and heat. You really just want to heat the sauce to warm. But heating it also mellows the raw garlic taste so you can heat for longer and taste as you go.

Since you don't really taste the spinach in it too much I like to serve it with another green such as steamed broccoli or asparagus on the side. It is also good with a side salad of course.

It is so good even Henry likes it usually. Just not this night for some reason. Actually I think this was because he wasn't in the mood for getting his hands dirty and he couldn't get his fork working. The next day he was a pro with the fork and ate lots of leftover pasta.

Smoothies

Firstoff, I decided to put a post about smoothies up on the blog because I wanted a reason to take photos of my most recent thrift store acquisition: the most beautiful blender the world has ever seen. But also since I've been making smoothies on and off for years and every single day for the past few months since Henry started liking them, I think I have some good knowledge on the subject to offer up to the internet community.


Back to my blender - isn't it beautiful. It's got avocado green, shiny chrome, and even faux wood grain. And it looks and works like new. And it cost just $12. I've been through 3 $150 blenders in the past 3 years. The first 2 that broke were luckily replaced under warranty. And after the third broke I did actually replace it with a cheaper new blender but I am happy to keep that one in the basement as backup so that I can have this one on my counter. I am hoping that this is one of those "they don't make them like they used to" situations and not an "Amy is way too hard on her blender" situation so that my new blender will last for years to come.

Of course this beautiful blender has created that age old problem of making my toaster and microwave look hideous but I think I can deal with it. Well, maybe I will keep just one eye out for an awesome thrift store toaster. But I don't think that microwaves are one of those "they don't make them like they used to" appliances. Besides, I don't think microwaves get much more vintage than our current one.

Onto the smoothies, I make some variation of this every morning. Assuming you are not taking pictures along the way, it takes less than 10 minutes for the whole thing.

First the veg (well 2 of these are fruits if we want to be technical). I add about 3 big collard leaves and avocado and, since zucchini are coming out of the garden right now, I've been adding those too. Add the collards to the blender first to be sure that they get well blended.

The protein: tofu, cashews, and flaxseed. I add a third of a 530 g package of soft silk tofu. I also sometimes add raw cashews, I find about 1/4 cup soaked in water overnight works well. I also always have soy protein powder in the pantry which I add if I am out of tofu or occasionally in addition to tofu.
The sweet fruit. I always add one banana and then about a handful of various frozen berries or peaches or whatever tasty fruit is in season. On this day I also added some raspberries and currants from the garden that weren't getting eaten. Mangos are also a really nice addition.
I meant to take a picture of all the ingredients stacked up in the blender, it looked quite nice but I accidentally pressed blend first so this is the picture showing the ingredients in the blender (some blended some not) along with the juice. I usually use orange juice but this is what I happened to have. It's a good idea to taste the smoothie before you take it out of the blender. If it turns out you added too much collard greens or flaxseed (too much and you can taste the bitterness) or even tofu (too much and the smoothie becomes bland) the best thing to add is raspberries as these seem to cover up those tastes the best. And if you don't like the grittiness of the flaxseed it is also a good idea to add raspberries because we are used to that gritty texture when we eat raspberry stuff.

I think that is just about all my smoothie knowledge. Of course just about any these ingredients can be substituted or omitted. The only balance that's important is the sweet versus non sweet ingredients.
So you can see these are pretty healthy. Lots of fruit and veg and protein. And calcium from the tofu and the greens. Henry has a serving of this, he sometimes drinks it all at once but it often goes in and out of the fridge while he works on it during the day. Having him get all this good stuff lets me feel a bit more relaxed about what he eats the rest of the day.

These ingredients made enough for 3 servings plus a little left over that I pour into popsicle molds. Henry and I both like to eat the popsicles that these smoothies make. And I found these great little molds at Dollarama that are nice and small for little Henry.

Here's the recipe just in case this information really is of use to anyone out there:

3 big leaves collard greens
1/2 avocado
1/2 zucchini
1/4 cup raw cashews presoaked overnight
1/3 pack soft silken tofu
1-2 TBSP flaxmeal
1 banana
~handful berries or other fruit
1/2 cup+ orange juice

Put all ingredients in blender and blend. Start with 1/2 cup juice and add more until well blended to desired consistency.

Zucchini

We had the first of the zucchini from the garden last night. This year I planted yellow thanks to a tip from Kevin's Aunt Linda that they are easier to spot before they grow humungous. I made a simple vegetable sauté that I think turned out so well that I thought I ought to post the recipe. We had it alongside smoked tofu sandwiches. I am in love with this Soyganic smoked tofu. Our Sobeys seems to get it in only about once every 3 months so last time I saw it I bought 4 packs but since I've had it twice this week I don't think that was nearly enough. It's just tofu with smoke flavour in it, none of the modified ingredients or msg that's in other meat substitutes. Last night our smoked tofu sandwiches were extremely good with red onion, tomato, avocado, lettuce, and mayo. Here is the recipe for the vegetable sauté.


Zucchini Sauté

1 TBSP vegetable oil
1 medium red onion, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
2 medium zucchini, sliced
2 large potatoes, cubed and either steamed or baked*
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp cumin

Heat the oil on medium-high heat in large fry pan. Add onions and peppers and sauté for 5 minutes. Add zucchini and herbs and spices and sauté until zucchini is soft, about 5 minutes. Add cubed potato and stir. Serve.

*I baked my potatoes in the microwave like so:
wash potatoes, poke several times with fork, wrap in paper towel, microwave for 5-10 minutes until soft
when cool enough to handle cut into 4 spears by making 2 cuts lengthwise and pull off the peel/scrape off the potato, then cut into 1 inch cubes

Henry had enough of staying in the house on Thursday so yesterday to stay cool (I am on a break from the heat for a while) we drove to the mall.

Italian Lentils and Polenta

We tried out a new meal yesterday that was all my idea. I saw polenta for sale at the supermarket and thought I'd give it a try. I have tried making my own polenta from corn meal years ago but it ended up in a big mess so I liked the idea of buying the premade stuff. However this stuff was really salty - not just too salty for my health kind of thing but too salty for my taste so I will have to have another go at making it myself next time.


I sliced and broiled the polenta and served it with italian lentils. I couldn't find any recipe online for italian lentils that had less than 4 pounds of sausage and lots of bacon. So I came up with my own recipe and I felt quite creative and chef-like while I was doing it. But really it is just a typical lentil soup recipe without the broth. Here is the recipe anyway, we really liked it.

Italian Lentils

olive oil
2 med. onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
1/2 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
3 bay leaves
2 1/2 cups dry lentils
16 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 veg stock cube
4+ cups water

Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft. Add carrots and herbs and saute another minute. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until lentils have softened and there is barely any liquid. Makes loads.

Serve with grilled polenta. I think it would also be good with barley or rice or quinoa.


And this is what Henry has been up to today. Getting very adventurous at the park and very dirty!

Slipping on the ice:

Playing with the ice:

Playing with the mud:

Dinner Rolls

I have a recommendation for a dinner roll. I made it as dinner rolls to go with an asian soup last week. (Because asian soup definitely doesn't go with my usual crusty loaf.) But I will definitely be trying it out as sandwich buns in the future - one of the few things that I still buy bread for. It is much softer than my usual bread and substantial but not too dense.

As you can see from the picture I just blindly followed the recipe and made 24 for some reason. So I have been popping the leftovers for snacks and also spreading some tinned salmon on them for lunches.

It is a really easy quick recipe with just a few minutes of kneading - just enough to make you think 'yes I really am making bread'. You can find the recipe on the Mother Huddle here.

Granola

We are big granola fans around here. I always make the same type, a recipe I adapted from one my mother in law gave me years ago. So when Soulemama gave hers on her blog in December I thought it might be time for a change. So we tried it. And it was pretty good. But mostly it made us realize how good our usual granola is and how we didn't want a change after all. So I thought I ought to post my recipe. I've posted it as a double recipe because it keeps so well, why wouldn't you make double.


GRANOLA

7 cups oats (old fashioned or quick oats, both work fine)

1 ½ cups walnuts, preferably chopped

1 cup unsweetened dried coconut

2/3 cup raw sunflower seeds

½ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ cup oil, I use sunflower

¾ cup maple syrup

2 cups raisins or other dried fruit, my favourite is a mix of sultanas and dried apples

Preheat oven to 325 F

Mix all the ingredients together except for the fruit (I find mixing wet and dry separately unnecessary in this recipe)

Spread out onto jelly roll pans

Put one pan on middle shelf and one on shelf below

Bake for 8 minutes, switch the pans so that the other pan is on the lower shelf and then bake for another 8 minutes (until dry and a bit golden).

Add the fruit. Will store for weeks.

Homemade Mustard

We've been experimenting with making our own mustard using Kevin's Grandma's recipe. It turned out good but very hot! Here is the recipe:

Hot Mustard

2 TBSP dry mustard

1TBSP cider vinegar

pinch garlic powder

hint of nutmeg, cayenne pepper, black pepper

1/4 tsp vegetable oil

Combine mustard and vinegar to smooth paste.

Add other ingredients and mix well.

Let stand an hour.

And we already started experimenting with different varieties.

Honey Mustard: add 1/2 TBSP honey and 1/2 TBSP water/beer

Cumin Mustard: add 1/4 tsp cumin and dash water/beer

We're not sure what the advantage of putting beer in mustard is, you cant taste it but it will make it sound fancier. Next we have to experiment with making it less hot so that other people will like it too. Also so that you can put enough mustard on your sandwich to actually taste our variations.