Dairy Free Cream of Cauliflower Soup #Vegan #WFPBNO #FoodISmedicine

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

           HOT SOUP!

As February winds down and March gets closer there is still plenty of time for some seasonal comfort foods like hot soup. My wife had planned on making dinner for our kids and grand kids over the weekend, but plans changed when the grand kids caught colds. She had already broken a head of cauliflower into florets and placed them in a pot to be steamed when the plans got canceled. She told me I might as well do something with the cauliflower so instead of simply steaming it, I found an easy way to turn it into cream of cauliflower soup! This couldn't be any easier and there are only 3 ingredients. It came out fantastic!  All you need is a pot and a blender. 

CREAM OF CAULIFLOWER SOUP

Prep Time:  5 min

Cooking Time:  20 minutes

Servings:  2

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of aquafaba from a can of chickpeas

Place a vegetable steamer separator into a pot. Add 1 cup of water and the head of cauliflower florets. Bring it to a boil and put the lid on the pot. Cook until the cauliflower is very, very tender. Put the cauliflower with the water (which is now veggie stock) into your blender with the aquafaba. Blend it for about 5 minutes or until it is completely smooth. Aquafaba is already salty so you don't have to add salt, but season to taste. 

That's all I did and I was tempted to eat the whole thing myself until I realized its an entire head of cauliflower with bean water. The consequences may be musical and unpleasant, not so much for me, but for my staff tomorrow!  Stay tuned.....  😝

Creamy Garlic Dressing. No Processed Oil #vegan #plant based #WFPBNO

CREAMY GARLIC DRESSING

We went grocery shopping today getting, among other things, plenty of fruits and vegetables.
When we got home and I was putting them away, I came across some celery and cherry tomatoes that were beginning to wilt.
Rather than throw them out or add them to a veggie stew, I simply soaked them in cold water for an hour and chopped them into a celery and tomato salad. It was looking a bit sad so I jazzed it up with some homemade dressing. It came out great so I'm sharing it with you!

Ingredients:
2 cups cashews, soaked in water overnight
then drained
4 garlic cloves
4 teaspoons white vinegar
½  teaspoon salt
½  teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon dried dill
½  cup aquafaba
2 Tablespoons water

In a high speed blender puree until creamy. Refrigerate and serve cold.

Let me know if you like it. I can always make more😎

Spaghetti Squash, Wild Rice, Quinoa, Tomatoes, Chili Peppers #WFPBNO

Here's a straightforward way of preparing spaghetti squash.

Cut the squash lengthwise. Scoop or the seeds. Brush the insides with aquafaba. Place it face down on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone liner.

Bake it at 400F for 50 minutes.

Put 2 cups of quinoa with 2 cups wild rice and 4 cups of water in a pressure cooker with Mrs. Dash saltfree seasoning. Cook it on the brown rice setting and let it vent naturally. 

Use a non stick pan, water with lemon juice to saute and carmelize a diced onion with 3 cloves of garlic and a red chili. Add 3 diced Roma tomatoes and deglaze the pan with more water and lemon juice.

Scoop out one of the halves of the squash. Toss everything together, put it in your nonstick pan. On medium heat cook off most of the water. Pack the mixture back into the empty half of the squash.

Plate and serve.

WFPBNO Personal Pepperoni Pizzas. DIY!! #vegan #healthyfood

How about a do it yourself pizza night wth the family? It's really easy to do. Prego Lower Calorie marinara sauce is compliant and on the shelf at Kroger. Store brand whole wheat pita is just flour, water and salt or make your own pita crust. I cut off the top and used the bottom as crust. You can make cheezy sauce like I did and add your own toppings. In my case, I made beets into a pepperoni substitute.  There are no limits on creativity! 

BEET JERKY PEPPERONI

Roast some beets with the skin on wrapped in foil. Set your mandolin to #2 and slice them. Put them on parchment paper. Season them with 1t fennel seeds, 1t onion salt, 1T dried onion flakes 1T garlic powder and 1/2 t crushed red peppers ground together in a mortar and pestle.

Bake at 375F for 40 min or until they start to get a little crispy. You have to watch them. Those on the top rack were perfect and the whole pan on the bottom rack got burned black.
Here's my cheezy sauce recipe:

CHEEZY SAUCE

Prep time:  15 minutes

Cooking time:  20 minutes

Total time:  35 minutes

Recipe

3 large redskin potatoes

6 TBSP Nutritional yeast

4 TBSP Tapioca flour

1 TBS lemon juice

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 tsp Tabasco 

1 TBSP salt

1 3/4 cups of starchy water from the boiled potatoes.

(If you like, add roasted red peppers to the blender to give it the orange cheddar color)

Peel, cut up and boil the potatoes in at least 2 cups of water with the TBSP of salt. Save the starchy water.

Put 1 3/4 cups of the starchy water from the potatoes and everything else into your blender or food processor and puree it until smooth.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook it on medium low heat stirring constantly until it thickens (about 20 min).

Add a little more water if it's too thick. Let it cool allowing it to thicken a little more and serve warm.
As pizza topping, pour it hot over your pizza sauce like mozzarella. Add your toppings.

Season with salt, pepper etc. to taste.

Enjoy!

6 years a VEGAN!!!

Vegan for 6 years and 3 days now!  Making it a New Year's resolution made it easy to keep track of the time.

Anyone can do this!  Even the people who aspire to be carnivores but have the dental structure of herbivores.

Here's my dinner tonight. Simple, easy and very filling...

Broccoli with Mrs Dash in the microwave for 2 minutes and a squirt of lemon juice,

Pinto beans with wild rice leftovers and a tossed salad with chickpeas and mild pickled pepper rings. Not complicated, not time consuming but totally delicious. 

Compare my meat eating couch potato self from 2013 to the current version of me. All I did was replace animal products and processed oil with fresh produce, whole grains, seeds and legumes. I'll never go back!

5 Years 11 Months and 13 Days A Vegan! "Chickpea salad" Sandwiches. No processed oil or sugar.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook time: none
Total time: 15 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
2 cups cashews, soaked in water overnight
then drained
4 garlic cloves
4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½  teaspoon salt
½ cup aquafaba

2 cans chickpeas, save the brine (aquafaba)
2 tablespoons capers, drained
3 stalks of celery, diced

3 tablespoons of dill pickle relish
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions
1. Blend the top 6 ingredients (cashews, garlic, vinegar, sea salt, aquafaba) until smooth and creamy.

Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups of garlic spread. Save the extra. It's great on anything!

Directions (Sandwiches):
1. Mix 2/3 cup of the garlic spread and the rest of the ingredients in your food processors. Pulse until it looks like tuna salad.
2. Toast some whole grain bread.

3. Spread the chickpea salad on the bread.

4. Add lettuce and mild peppers..

71 Months A Vegan!!! Zoodles aka spiralized zucchini #eatyourveggies

Eating this last night made me feel guilty and really stuffed. I kept mentally slapping myself to hammer in that this is NOT pasta. It's fresh zucchini noodles I made using a $10.00 "Zoodle maker" or "spiralizer" with mixed veggies and oil free marinara sauce. This morning it all left me 💩.

Recipe:

Take 3 medium sized yellow zucchini squash and make zoodles. Set aside In a bowl of water. 

In a non stick skillet on medium high heat with 1/2 of cup of water, carmelize a large sweet onion, 4 finely chopped cloves of garlic, 3 large chopped mushrooms, the red stalks of some Swiss chard for color with a little salt. Stir until all the water is about gone and the carmel color is all over the pan. Deglaze the pan with the juice of 1/2 a lemon mixed with 1/4 cup of water. Stir some more to get the color on the veggies.

Drain the zoodles and add them to the pan.  Cook them down until they look like limp spaghetti and most of the water is gone. 

Add 2 cups of oil free marinara sauce. I used "Prego Light Smart". It has no oil and is available at Wal-Mart and Kroger. Keep stirring and cooking again until most of the water is gone. Add a TBSP of nutritional yeast. Give it a final stir. Serve hot.

You're welcome!!