Dr, Neal Bernard has a new book out ‘The Power Foods Diet”, and the information is easy to understand and the recipes in the back look amazing! I’ve made this recipe twice already.
I could go on and on about how easy this is, how satisfying but light it is, but let’s just get to the recipe!
Buffalo Cauliflower Wraps——-serves 4-6
4 cups cauliflower, cut into small pieces [1 head]
1/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp. EACH garlic powder and onion powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 cup hummus of your choice
your favorite whole grain tortillas!
~~Preheat oven to 425 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the cauliflower into uniform pieces, so they’ll cook evenly.
~~ Add the cauliflower pieces into a big bowl, add the hot sauce and toss to coat the cauliflower. Add the nutritional yeast, garlic and onion powder, and salt. Toss to combine, making sure all of the cauliflower is coated. Spread it onto the baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the pieces over and bake for another 15 minutes. The cauliflower should be fork-tender.
~~Spread the tortillas with hummus, add the cauliflower. You can eat it as is, but I prefer to grill it. You can add some shredded lettuce too if you’d like.
We had this today with a salad and asparagus, and this time I added some onions and peppers to the wrap. Let me know if you try it!
I can’t believe I’ve neglected this poor blog for almost 2 years! I have an impressive collection of vegan cookbooks, so my cunning plan is to pick a few recipes and feature them along with the book, hopefully on a regular basis. Time will tell…
The pandemic hasn’t been good for any of us. So much stress all around, and I think we all turned to the comfort of our certain something for a while. My certain something was chocolate and cookies! Sugar has always been my drug of choice, and no, I don’t think it’s evil, but when it has a hold on me, it just pisses me off! Just between us, it was just too easy for me to whip into the parking lot of any Dollar General and buy those accidentally vegan cookies. Not proud of that, but there it is.
Sooo, it’s been over 2 years, and about 20 pounds later, I resolved that I have to do better for myself. I’ve never forgotten a friend saying that she really had to stop blaming her continued weight gain on having a baby, since that was over 30 years ago! Ha!
I’d been fascinated by the various potato diets making the rounds over the last few years. Some people [the stage magician Penn Jillett comes to mind] reset their tastebuds by having potatoes exclusively [grim], and there’s the Potato Re-set, the Potato Hack, Spud Fit, and the one that Garry and I were most attracted to: Mary’s Mini, created by Mary McDougal, the wife of Dr. John McDougal. I’d been wanting to give it a try for a long time. It’s pretty simple: for 10 days you choose one starch like potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, brown rice, or quinoa, but once you choose – that’s the starch you eat for the duration of the mini, which is 10 days. Add non-starchy vegetables on the side and eat your starch and veg freely whenever you’re hungry. And you can have 1 piece of fruit a day. Things not allowed on Mary’s Mini: oils, nuts, seeds, tofu, alcohol, avocados, coconut, chocolate, breads, processed vegan foods, and of course, since Dr. McDougal is vegan, no dairy or meat. Condiments are fine, as long as there’s no fat, and the ingredients are good quality, so ketchup, mustard, vinegar, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, nutritional yeast etc, are okay.
The McDougals say that the Mary’s Mini is supposed to be boring and monotonous, but no, I can’t do that. I took it as a challenge to get creative with my tubers. Food is to be enjoyed!
Today is Day 10 of our Mini and it’s been….fun! And really simple. Everything else in this post is food photos, so I won’t keep you in suspense. I feel since I’m so close to the end I can give you a fair assessment. Both Garry and I loved it!!! I can see us doing this a few times a year. I’m even considering doing a 3-Day Mini maybe once a month, just to tame my feral tastebuds. I’m just going to throw out a few realizations that I’ve had over over the last 10 days, so here we go—- I’d like to try brown rice next time.— During these 10 days I don’t think we ever had the same meal twice.—- One of my favorite snacks is cold potato wedges and coarse mustard [try it!]. —-Both Garry and realized that we were becoming a little too dependent on processed vegan foods; nothing wrong with those, but they’ll go into the “occasional” category for us from now on.—- We’ve realized that just fruit can be a perfectly lovely dessert.—-We’re not tired of potatoes!—-We would recommend this to anyone. It’s only 10 days!—We both have noticeably less joint pain and more energy!—-We had food cravings only on the first day, so it really highlit the number of impulses to eat we had on a daily basis, and how much we stress-eat.—-I was crabby only in the evening of the first day, right Garry?—–I can go without chocolate for 10 days at a time.—-Our only cheat was oat milk in our morning coffee.—-I’m looking forward to doing this again!—-Brown rice, beans, and baked tofu and oatmeal sounds absolutely decadent!—–When we weighed in on the 11th morning, Garry had effortlessly lost 6 pounds and I’d joyfully lost 6.6 pounds, and that’s pretty impressive after 10 days of all-you-can-eat potatoes!
This was my centerpiece, in more ways than one, for the last 10 days!This was the first thing I made–cooked it up overnight so we woke up to it on the first day. It cooked into a nice thick potato stew and we had it for a few days.Made this fabulous “cheese” sauce with potatoes, carrots, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt! A bowl of potato/veg stew AND mashed potatoes, with a Thai cucumber salad.Steamed green beans with some of that magic “cheese” sauce, and air-fried potato wedges with ketchup. I love ketchup… Potato “omelette” made with thawed frozen shredded potatoes topped with ‘cheese’ sauce, vegetables, cooked on a panini maker and folded over. Potatoes smashed and air-fried till crispy and topped with barbecue sauce and dill pickles on the side. This tasted like a cookout! I mixed some pico de gallo in with my potato/veg stew and topped it with ‘cheese’ sauce and my beloved Frank’s Red Hot. It was a good stand-in for chili.Smashed, seasoned crispy potatoes with roasted tomatoes and lots of vegetables. This is great food! Our appetite for pizza is legendary and we weren’t deprived even during our Mary’s Mini! Shredded potatoes cooked in the panini maker till crispy was the crust, and then we just loaded it up with sauce and veg, and baked!Here’s a salad [I swear there’s greens under there] topped with hot potatoes and a dressing made from mustard and a little maple syrup.Nothing is more comforting than potato soup.Garry wanted to make one of his sainted mother’s specialties, she called them “haystacks”. Just seasoned raw potatoes and vegetables, wrap it in foil and bake at 400F for an hour. I’m the queen of food prep. I though this was an impressive array for us to choose from when we put together our lunches for work. If I didn’t prep ahead of time, there’s no way I could do this.Garry made potato chips! They’re as crispy as they look. And we love them with no seasoning at all.This was one of my favorite things–NACHOS! Just potato chips with squash and onions, cauilflower rice seasoned with cumin and chili powder, ‘cheese’ sauce, and pico de gallo. I mean, come on!No potatoes here–I just thought this was a beautiful choice for our 1 fruit serving per day. We also enjoyed apple, melon, pineapple, and peaches. I made a casserole with shredded potatoes and shredded broccoli, and served it with [surprise] various vegetables.Today’s breakfast!
This morning I found myself telling Garry about the pizza we used to have at the elementary school I went to–big fluffy squares of salty, oily, doughy sustenance, that would fortify me for whatever challenges grade school could throw at my young impressionable frame. Man, it was good!
So I had some dough already made up. I use the basic recipe from “5-Minute Artisan Bread” and make it with 1/2 whole wheat flour. I was also inspired to make it “grandma-style” which means I wasn’t baking it on a pizza stone or using any fancy implements. I just put some parchment on a simple heavy baking sheet, and spread the dough out. Grandma pizzas start with the cheese on the bottom and finish with the sauce on top. I was going to let this dough rise for a little extra loft and didn’t want to add the wet ingredients first.
I can’t make a simple one-note pizza, so I started with Violife vegan cheeses, and then started layering the vegetables. Fresh spinach first—
Then I cooked up one huge portabella mushroom.
I kept adding vegetables. There’s a layer of spinach, mushrooms, a few grated carrots, onions, red and yellow peppers, and corn kernels cut freshly from the cob. I know it sounds odd, but corn adds a delightful pop of sweetness!
Then I added the sauce of top, just random sloshes here and there, and a generous sprinkling of dried oregano.
I baked it in a hot oven [500 degrees F] for 15 minutes, and it was perfect!
We had a salad on the side made with baby kale and chard, carrots, cucumbers, and peppers.
So, I can’t say that this was exactly like the square school pizza I used to have at my beloved Figsboro Elementary School, but it was delicious, and I daresay a little healthier than that doughy pie from the past. Maybe I just needed to reminisce for a while about a simpler time in my life where I loved all my pretty teachers and they loved me, and comfort was dished up by smiling lunch ladies who only wanted us to be happy.
It’s been months since I’ve posted anything. Looks like the last time I posted anything was back in February 2021. Only half a year. Oh well, during a pandemic one loses all track of time.
So yeah, this blog will have no recipes, not yet. Just a few pretty food pictures. We’ve been eating rather basic the last few months–great stuff, just…basic.
We’ve been eating a lot of wraps. This was more of an enchilada sort of thing, with a side of potatoes. We’ve been eating SO MANY potatoes. Is there anything better than potatoes? “Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew.” That had to be said.
While I have you here, that sauce squiggled over the top? It’s half tahini and half Frank’s hot sauce. Best thing ever!
Baked blueberry oatmeal with local berries and peaches. And that one half fig on the plate [Garry and I shared it] came from our one fig tree that has been lolling around doing nothing for the last 8 years or so and finally squeezed out this one perfect fig. Get to work, fig tree! But I have to say that one was really delicious. Thankful to have a friend who gifts us with beautiful figs–thanks Noel!!! I still love to make pizzas. The one on the left was rather traditional, and the other one is barbecued jackfruit/corn/purple napa cabbage. Look at this beautiful salad—just arugula, peaches, berries, grated carrots, and Violife feta. I love Violife feta but it really tastes more like goat cheese, which I used to love. I topped it with some maple balsamic vinegar. Another very basic meal–brown rice with that tahini/hot sauce mixture that I mentioned earlier, some corn, onions, yellow squash, and black beans, and a dollop of beet hummus. This is the year that I learned to love beets! I could eat this every day– a whole grain everything bagel with cashew cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, peppers, grated carrots, sprouts, and spinach. The best! We have this sort of thing all the time–this time it’s a mix of brown rice, red quinoa, lentils, and I added a package of frozen chopped spinach, and I chopped up a block of tofu, baked it, and added it to the whole thing. We have it for days, and never get tired of it, since it’s very lightly seasoned, so we can just add whatever sauces or condiments we like during the week. One day salsa, one day pesto, the next day teriyaki, you get the idea!
Well, that WAS fun! Maybe this will start me on a path of posting regularly again. I’ve missed it!
Here we are, a year into the pandemic, and it’s our first quarantine Valentine’s Day. Not that we make a big thing of it, because, well, every day is a shower of romantic enchantment for us. Fact! If you’ve been following this blog even a little, you know that pizza is definitely a big part of our love language. After 37 years it seems to have worked for us.
Also, we don’t get out much these days, not to mention we’re iced in, so I got a little creative with our pies. I went down to our magic pantry to see what I could come up with. I made up some dough first and made these wonders.
I thought I’d try a Nashville Hot “Chicken” pizza since I found some soy curls and tossed them in Frank’s Red Hot and Siracha with a touch of maple syrup added. I put a layer of my cashew cream cheese on the unbaked crust, then added some vegan cheddar over that, then the spicy soy curls, some corn, chopped up some pickles [I only had some little cornichons, but they were perfect], and a few slices of sweet/hot jalepenos.
This was a more traditional pizza. Red sauce, a layer of spinach, vegan mozz, a little broccoli, corn [try it!], garlic, red peppers, artichoke hearts, and herbs. Always satisfying! The next day for breakfast we had a slice with crumbled “sausage” and JustEgg added.
This was a Thai curry pizza. I made a sauce from coconut milk and massamun curry paste, so that went on first, then a bit of vegan cheese, then spinach, broccoli shreds, peppers, garlic, butternut squash, pickled red onions, and peanuts. We both love Thai so this one intrigued us the most, I think. I’d never made one like it before. It was amazing!
Yep, we’ve spent a lot of extra time together this past year.
We still enjoy each other’s company. How’s things in your pod?
Every year Garry and I make a Christmas Pizza—we’ve made snowmen, wreathes, Christmas trees, and candy canes. So far we’ve only done one, but the season isn’t over yet!
I started out with a quick dough that I made in the food processor. I’ve recently discovered bread flour–I honestly didn’t know it was that different from all-purpose flour, but it makes any bread, well, “breadier”! I used half white flour and half whole wheat.
This pizza isn’t as detailed as some that we’ve made, not as many “ornaments” on this tree because we’re just not going to the supermarket these days, but sometimes it’s just fine to keep things simple.
We just added sauce, then some vegan mozzarella, and topped it with arugula leaves. Looks cute already!
Next we added a garland of vegan pepperoni, and some sliced tomato.
Here’s the finished pizza! It was really good, and there’s just enough leftover to have for breakfast with tofu scramble!
Here’s a couple of Christmas pizzas we’ve had in the past–who could forget “Garlicky the Snowman”?
This year, instead of having family and friends over, it was just me and Garry. For the last month I thought about how strange it would be to not have that usual happy flurry of activity, then I decided to reframe it and consider it a quiet time to just hang out with my favorite human. Luckily, Garry and I enjoy each other’s company! Also, it was an opportunity to have a different menu.
Instead of the usual cranberry sauce, I made cranberry salsa and it was easy to make, no cooking, and it was absolutely delicious. I’ll make it again, and I found the right dip for those clever leaf-shaped tortilla chips.
This was a lovely salad, but it was too small. Tomorrow I’ll have a much bigger one. This was just a plate of baby greens dressed with a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and maple syrup, pickled red onions, pomegranate arils, warm roasted butternut squash, vegan feta, and roasted sweet/spicy nuts.
Last night I made a sweet potato bread dough and let it rise all night, and this morning I divided the dough in half and made some cinnamon rolls, and with the other half I made some sweet/ savory swirls with a tomato jam I made last week with some fresh tomatoes. These are the tomato ones:
For the main dish this year, I opted for a [vegan] chicken pot pie. I made the seitan last week and the pastry crust yesterday and assembled it today. It was really delicious, but not beautiful. I need to work a bit on my pie crust skills. In my defense, it was whole grain and not as silky smooth as pastry made with white flour.
I had to have Brussels sprouts and every Thanksgiving I simply roasted them completely naked. [The sprouts, not me!] This year I added a little bacon salt [vegan!], and maple syrup and roasted them till they were crispy around the edges. I could’ve eaten all of them!
I made some corn pudding too. Slightly sweet and totally comforting. I threw in some cooked onions, red peppers, and minced kale.
So this year we didn’t have nearly as many different dishes, but having a fresh salad was a nice touch and I may start doing that every Thanksgiving!
Desserts! We had cinnamon rolls, pumpkin cookies, brownies [made by Garry], and sweet potato/cranberry bread.
The best thing about Thanksgiving? Leftovers for days!
So that was Thanksgiving 2020 and I’m deeply grateful for everything I have. The only thing that could’ve made it better is to have had my dear family and sweet friends here, but staying in our own little pod this year was clearly the wisest, safest thing to do, and hopefully will ensure that we’re all around for next Thanksgiving!
I can’t believe that it’s been 6 months since I’ve made an entry here. Let’s just say that living and working during a global pandemic can be very distracting. My diet has gone through some weird gyrations during this time, like that cookie binge back in March. Still vegan though, of course!
I’m ready to get back to posting regularly. In the meantime, here’s some pics of some of the things I’ve grilled recently.
Teriyaki tofu slices and hemp-crusted tofu:
Tempeh and zucchini:
Grilled polenta and onions:
Grilled peppers, onions, green garlic, “sausage”:
Potatoes!
Bread dough “bakes” beautifully on the grill. I use a simple charcoal grill—just watch it closely. It goes fast!
Grilled mango and peaches–I made salsa with these.
I’ve recently started getting produce boxes from Misfits Market–that’s a delivery service that brings fresh organic fruit and vegetables right to my door. The luxury! It’s funny how excited I get on delivery day! Hmmm… maybe I need to get out more….
So I’m trying things I’ve never tried before. In my last box I received a small container of maitake mushrooms. I really didn’t know what to do with them, but then I saw that a friend [Hi Joy!] used her maitakes to make a sandwich, and I thought that was brilliant, so I put a Philly cheese steak spin on it, but I also wanted to use all whole foods, nothing overly processed. [Not this time anyway!]
If you’re interested in trying this, I think you could use any mushroom, but the maitakes had a really nice texture.
I kept it very simple—I rough-chopped a green pepper, a red onion and the maitakes and water-sauteed them till they seared and tender. I added salt and pepper, and a slosh of vegan Worcestershire sauce–that’s all.
I didn’t have any fluffy rolls for it, but I had whole wheat wraps, so I used them. Instead of cheese, I spread on a layer of hummus. I know it sounds weird, but it’s lush and creamy. If you’ve never made a grilled “cheese” sandwich with hummus, try it!
So first a layer of hummus, then because I couldn’t help myself, I added some kale. I have to blatantly add greens whenever I can, then I layered on the veg and maitakes.
And on top of that, I drizzled a touch of tahini over it all to give it that extra feel of creaminess and an extra sprinkle of salt. Then it all went into the Griddler until it was hot all the way through and the outside was golden and crispy. Check it out.
It was amazing how satisfying this was—-all good healthy ingredients, and it tasted incredible!
Alchemist in the Kitchen 