Photo Gallery of Meals

There are so many photos of food on my computer now, I need to put them up! For awhile I was ambitious enough to take a snapshot almost every time I ate at home, but I've realized I'm so busy working various jobs, and making snacks for myself, that I barely have any time or energy to blog. Sooo...I'm just going to put up all the photos, and if you're reading this and one of them looks interesting, let me know and I'll tell you how to make it!

Barbecue Sunflower Seed Burger with Fresh Red Peppers
and Red Leaf Lettuce with Sauerkraut Salad, Carrots and Walnuts

Fay's Pasta Salad
She's my mom. This pasta is a little different every time, always good.

Rice with fresh yellow tomato salsa, peas, corn and cilantro.
Topped with nopales, cactus leaves.

Fresh Zucchini Lunch Pizza

Hot Delicious.

Tofu Veggie Burger with melted fake Mozzarella, Guacamole, mustard, lettuce, tomato, and onion on sprouted toast.

Purple, yellow and red potatoes, roasted with beets, carrots and garlic.

Green Salad with Sauteed Fava Beans and Marinated Portabella Mushroom

Little Mustard Buns
I didn't make these, they came frozen, but aren't they cute?!!!
That's really what they're called.

Squash Blossoms: An Epic Tale

Well the restaurant where I work is serving these curious flowers, stuffed, beer-battered, and fried, atop pesto sauce. Naturally, I'm jealous, so when I saw squash blossoms at the market this weekend I decided I was gonna "Ve-gan-iiize it!" (to the tune of "Le-ga-liiize it!"). I took pictures. It was epic, bro.

Squash Blossoms

There were four of them, and two of me. They look almost too small and delicate to be stuffed and hold together, but they're deceiving. They're about the length of my thumb, if you measure starting at the wrist. When I finally did stuff them it felt natural and satisfying. But before that, were the processes...

Pesto

I love pesto, as I believe every person in the world loves pesto, in some form or another. One of the best things about it, is that it is so deliciously flexible. Here in this post lies a pesto that rebels against many of pesto's traditional guidelines, while maintaining integrity of the basic nature of the sauce.

I made pepita, cilantro, thai basil pesto. I substituted nutritional yeast for Parmesan cheese, providing a nice rounded funky taste reminiscent of hard cheese, and plentiful in many of the same nutrients, minus the breast-feeding. (oops, did I say that out loud? It's late.) Okay pesto,

first, the ingredients:



this recipe was halved, and adapted, from my mom's, which is from somewhere...

1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup thai basil with
1/2 cup cilantro
1/8 cup nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic
generous pinch of salt

Grind the seeds and garlic in a food processor. Add basil, cilantro, and nutritional yeast and process until the mixture is pureed.

At this point you're supposed to add the oil "in a slow, steady stream" while the processor is going. I tried this tonight and had a slow steady stream of organic oil onto my counter. Perhaps you're better with your processor, but in my experience, pesto tastes good whether it achieves the texture of mayonnaise or not, so I opened the not-as-porous-as-it-looks lid, and dumped the remainder of the the oil in to process at awkward intervals of "chop" and "grind."


It smelled intoxicating when I was stripping the stalks of their cilantro and basil leaves. Herbs are intoxicating, have you noticed? Not just "herb," but lots of herbs. They have smells, I mean, that make your eyes water and your nostrils flare. Rosemary, sometimes, can make me feel like I'm in a pine tree filled with chopped onions, but yet I love rosemary for it. The fresh herbs today were tantalizing, torturing, and tickling me in the eyes, the nostrils, the finger tips, as I plucked leaves indiscriminatley, dirty and withered, and stuffed them into a measuring cup. Half and half, cilantro and basil pesto, with pumpkin seeds and nutty yeast.




So then it was pesto, whether Italy says so or not. I love pesto, did I mention that??! Anyway, refrigerate, and move on to next step.








Portobella Mushroom and Summer Squash Filling

1 portobella mushroom, stem removed, brushed with hand, chopped
1/2 half yellow summer squash, chopped
1/3 small white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
olive oil
earth balance




This steamy mixture could've run the meal, but tonight it's filling a flor. I sauteed first the onions, then added garlic, a minute, added mushrooms, sautee two minutes, cover and steam a minute or so, stir, sautee, smell. Add squash, stir, sautee. Cover and steam. Open when its steamin and throw it in the food processor, I thought it would fall outta the flores if I left it chunky, so puree seemed like the theme of the night.



Stuffing.







Stuffed.

Beer-battered and frying.

The final product!

Served with a pint of Arrogant Bastard Ale, which is in the batter, and a side of corn salsa and chips.

The verdict?
I'll level with you. They were gross.
"Saaad, really? After all that?!"
Yes.
Here's what I think went wrong:
a) I don't have that which to deep fry things, so the frying process was messy and ineffective. The blossoms should have been quickly heated through and the batter should have quickly cooked up crisp, but the insides were just warm and the batter cooked more slowly than is ideal.
b) Arrogant Bastard makes a gross batter. Beer batter should be made with a light but flavorful brew, I think. Arrogant Bastard is fine for drinking one of, but overall it is high in alcohol, too malty AND too hoppy (aka too sweet and too bitter), hence the name. It's Obnoxious American beer. My excuse is that the recipe I was using, taken from the the restaurant at Stone Brewery where A.B. is made, calls for this beer. The last time I made it I used Stone Pale, my fave of Stone's offerings, and I think that would've been better.
c) So I didn't "use a recipe" for the filling. At my restaurant the filling is summer squash, carrot, and ricotta, and to be honest that sounds gross too. Too many sweet things, and too much mush, and I've heard people comment that they are either "delicious" or "way too rich" so who knows.

If you'll notice, I didn't include the batter recipe or pictures, and that is because it didn't turn out well and besides, I was getting bored.

Anyway, wasn't this fun?! :)

What I would do next time:
-Try and emulate a more ricotta-ey filling by using a tofu base, but no carrots, eww (love em, but not here), maybe a lot of basil and lemon, garlic..I'm not sure. Ricotta-ey filling still sounds like a lotta mush to me....
-Dump a huge bottle of oil into a big pot and try to actually deep fry the things. OR! maybe I could bake them in a very hot oven.
-Use a pale ale for the batter, or maybe just use a non-beer batter.
-Eat those delicious mushrooms without stupid pureeing them. Sigh, what a waste of yummies.

By the way, don't worry, the pesto was great!

Strawberry Almond breakfast sandwich

On the mornings when I have to get up and go, I usually try to bring a sandwich. More often than not it's bread and nut butter, with or without other things. Tonight's sandwich (I make them the night before, or else stumble through store-buying a meal) was a zag away from the intended, frenzied zig of a smoothie. I needed to use up my strawberries, as they were growing duller and more mushy by the second. I realized I could make a delicious smoothie of the berries, rice milk, and almond butter. I was all excited, getting out the fruit and my portable beverage bottle, when a smoky light bulb ignited over my head, and I spun around to rearrange my ingredients.

"Sandwich" I thought, and made this:


Ingredients:
-2 slices whole grain bread (Ezekial in this case), toasted
-Raw almond butter
-3-4 strawberries, sliced

Spread almond butter on both pieces of bread. Arrange strawberries on one slice of almond toast, tessellation style.

Cover with other toast, slice and serve, or refrigerate over night for a portable breakfast.

Hope it's good!

Cereal with Ripe Fruit

So this isn't really a recipe, and if you've never sliced ripe fruit and eaten it on cereal before, I feel sorry for you, but I'm just trying to post a lot of meals I eat at home, to share ideas and satisfaction.

Today's cereal topping was about three strawberries and a whole, small peach, all sliced up and followed by a generous pour of rice milk. The peach, my first sample of the year, was perfect, absolutely delicious. The strawberries two, but I had already eaten 20 or so since I bought them yesterday.


These flakes I bought last week for the first time. I've heard amaranth is good for you, and I don't see myself cooking any in the immediate future so I figured I'd try this cereal, which actually has a bunch of other grains mixed in as well. I've been trying to add more grains to my life so I don't survive on mostly wheat with a little corn and rice thrown in. Most of us eat a LOT of wheat, which is the grain used for any baked good that doesn't specify otherwise, and anything called simply "flour."

Anyway, I haven't had a lot of cereal-worthy fruit lately, since it's mostly been oranges and apples for the last few months. I guess apples would be okay for cereal, but I tend to use them more as a portable fruit option since their such tough guys on the road. Point being, this simple bowl of cereal was sort of exciting.

Just to confirm there were some flakes in the bowl, and not just fruit:
Also, this strawberry hearts you, and I do too.












Love, Julia

Quinoa with Fresh tomatoes and Mint

Usually if I have Thursday off, as I do today, I take myself out to a lovely lunch at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley, and I feel very healthy and inspired. Because of a project, however, which I will write about later, I was compelled to stay home for my afternoon meal. I decided to make something that would be reminiscent of the meal I'd of had there, which the last two times has been their "Macro Bowl," as in macrobiotic. I'm still not sure about all the principles of the macrobiotic diet, but I do know that it has to do with balancing foods that are yin and yang (every food is more one than the other, apparently), using a lot of grains and vegetables, and usually (always?) including a pickled item. Gratitude's Macro Bowl is shredded raw kale, steamed quinoa, homemade kim chee, teriyaki raw almonds, sprouts (the kind with big green leaves) and tahini sauce. I never thought it sounded good, but after it was recommended to me I finally found out it's delicious.

I didn't have a pickled item, unfortunately, but I did have leftover quinoa from last night. Quinoa cooks much more quickly than rice, so this kind of meal could be done easily without having it leftover, and using whatever you have for toppings. I added some fresh, frozen, dried, and bottled things I had in the kitchen. I was going to use Annie's Goddess dressing to simulate the tahini sauce experience, but when I tossed and tasted the mixture before dressing, I liked the flavors so much that I didn't want to overwhelm them. I chose oil and vinegar instead, which is my favorite dressing almost always.

I think the tomatoes that are at farmers' market already must be greenhouse...

The pistachios were an excellent touch, as are the almonds in the restaurant meal. It's satisfying the have an occasional hard, crunchy bite. I never would have thought to mix pistachios with much of anything except they were the only nuts I had. I love improvising!

Ingredients:
-one serving of leftover quinoa, about a cup
-half a fresh tomato, chopped
-a little fistful of chopped fresh mint
-1 clove garlic, chopped finely
-bit of red onion, chopped, about a tablespoon
-bit of frozen peas, rinsed but not cooked
-bit of frozen corn, rinsed and then cooked in a little water for about a minute
-handful of pistachios, shelled
-a tablespoon or so nutritional yeast
-olive oil
-balsamic vinegar

Stir and enjoy!

...I meant to take a picture after tossing, but the meal mysteriously disappeared before I remembered to photograph it again. mmmm!!!

Three Random Sides

This dinner was based around a very odd mushroom, and an attempt to use pantry items I already had.


I'm always intrigued by the mushroom stand at the city farmers' market, and when I went the other day I decided to go for the weirder of the two specimens that were marked organic. Lion's Mane, it's called, puffy and yellowish white. The woman told me to just pan-fry them, and I left them without any seasoning to see how they taste. I've read they're similar to lobster or crab, and while I don't have enough experience with either of those to confirm or deny that, it seems vaguely on point. Chewy and meaty with a bit of sea flavor. Pretty tasty, kinda bordering on really good.

Here's what they look like raw, I didn't think to take a picture so I grabbed this one.



After having blown through the market as it was closing, and left with two odd mushrooms in a paper bag, I decided to grab a bunch of organic asparagus at the produce shop. At Christopher's suggestion I broiled those in the oven after tossing them in olive oil, salt and pepper. Five or ten minutes, I forget, but check on them a lot, as with anything you're broiling.



For my third random side dish, to complete the meal, I cooked up garlic, onions, and pinto beans, then stirred in italian herb pasta sauce, and some cooked, og, whole wheat fusilli. Pasta with red sauce, but made more nutritious by using whole grain pasta and beans.

Altogether the meal was preetty good, not amazing, but probably nutritionally sound. Next time I would chop up the mushrooms and the asparagus, saute them with garlic and vegan butter, maybe a red pepper, then I'd stir all that over pasta (minus the red sauce). I'd serve it with salad, and garlic bread made with lots more vegan butter, sauteed garlic, and a delicious fresh crusty bread. I like olive bread or sourdough whole wheat for garlic bread. mmmmmm. I wish I had made that meal. Maybe next time!


P.S. The farmer lady told me the mushrooms were healthy, and when I looked them up online I found out they are alleged to prevent, cure, or heal the symptoms of; dementia, cancers of the digestive tract, ulcers, alzheimer's, high blood pressure, and HIV-infected patients with sensory neuropathy (whatever that is, sounds painful). They stimulate nerve cell regeneration, and are anti-inflammatory. They are a superfood, who knew? Chinese doctors, apparently, so probably a lot of people. They're definitely tasty enough to eat too!

Spring Bruschetta and Salad with Fresh Peas

I'm experiencing my first year in a new climate, and I have to say that plants coming into season months before I'm used to is much more disconcerting than I ever would have thought. I never really noticed how much I expected strawberries and asparagus, for example, to come out in late summer, but when they began lining the shelves here in Northern California in mid April, I was really thrown off. It's too early, I'm thinking, and what have I done to deserve this so soon? What will I look forward to now? It just doesn't seem right.

All that said, tonight's dinner was delicious, regardless of the fact that bites of it conjure up images of summer in New England, and I'm all types of confused and sort of tentatively excited that tomatoes are in season, one of my favorite parts of life.

Bruschetta Ingredients:
-2 small tomatoes (ripe and in season!!)
-2 cloves garlic
-red onion
-fresh mint
-fresh cilantro
-fresh lemon
-olive oil
-pinto beans (rinsed, from a can)
-2 slices whole wheat sourdough bread
-1 slice vegan mozzarella
-vegan butter (organic Earth Balance)

Assembly:
-Chop tomatoes into quarter inch pieces and place in roomy storage container, leave it open as you cut the other ingredients and add them as you go.
-Chop the garlic finely, and then finely chop the onion, cilantro, and mint so that you have about as much of each of these things as you have garlic. Add more or less to taste, of course.
-Toss in a handful or two of beans.
-Squeeze about a quarter of a lemon over the whole thing. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of olive oil.
-Mix thoroughly, cover, and refrigerate while you make salad and bread.

I did each of the two slices of bread differently, so that in case the vegan cheese ruined that one, at least the other one would be good. The cheesy one was surprisingly good, though, and the other one was surprisingly not the favorite. Liked 'em both..anywho...

-Set your oven to broil.
-Place one slice of bread in the toaster and toast, meanwhile lay the slice of cheese over the other piece of bread and place under broiler.
-When the toaster pops up, butter that slice, then check on the broiling cheese toast, it'll take about five minutes.
-Top bothe slices toast with the bruschetta mixture, adding more oil, salt, or herbs as desired.
-Eat with a fork and sharp serated knife, or by picking it up with your hands. MMM!

Serves One, but with leftover bruschetta mixture.

Salad
-2 leaves red leaf lettuce, rinsed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
-bit of red onion, sliced
-3 english snap peas, shelled
-sesame oil
-ume plum vinegar

Assembly:
-You know, put these thing together.

Serves One.

Liberal sprinklings each of sesame oil and ume plum vinegar made this salad SO GOOD. I was experimenting with an alternative to my usual olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which I love but gets boring. I wondered if eschewing the more Italian inspired favorite for the Asian-oriented o+v I went with would be weird with the bruschetta, but the only weirdness was that after taking a bite of the salad I didn't touch the bruschetta again until until my salad was gone. Normally I would keep shifting back and forth, maintaining roughly equal amounts of each food item, but there was no ripping me away from this salad, which had seemed so very simple. mmmm. Also, my plan was to just slice up the peas in their pods, but the first one practically shelled itself when I tried to cut it, so I figured that was the thing to do. Left 'em raw though. Crunchy and sweet.

Overall a pretty refreshing, delectable, summery meal on this first day of May in my new climate. The mint was one of the predominant aftertastes, and who can complain about that? Plus I dare someone to try and get me sick after that does of vitamin-C-rich tomatoes and illness-fighting fresh garlic.

Happy Spring!

Late Winter Medi Salad with Hummus Pitas

This recipe is called Winter because many of the ingredients are jarred or canned, making it an accessible salad for those Tomatoes-Aren't-Worth-Eating, cold months of the year. Medi is short for Mediterranean, which is the vague term that comes to my mind with at least two of the ingredients. Anyway, it's delicious, and that should be the main thing.

Salad Ingredients:
-Romaine Lettuce, washed and chopped into bite sized pieces (pre-washed and cut works)
-5 or so Kalamata olives, pitted and split in half (come in a jar)
-2 hearts of palm, sliced or whole, as desired (come in a can)
-2 dolmas (stuffed grape leaves, come in a a jar or can)
-1 small handful chickpeas (from a can)
-1 very small handful chopped red onion
-1 small handful chopped broccoli
-1 very small handful chopped fresh fennel
-1 very small handful raw pumpkin seeds

-drizzles of olive oil
-splashes of balsamic vinager
-1 pinch dried oregano
-1 pinch or three grinds black pepper

Pita Ingredients:
-1 whole or 1/2 whole wheat pita
-hummus or other bean spread or dip

To assemble:
-Place all salad ingredients except dolmas (and palms if leaving whole) in a deep bowl and toss well to coat with dressing.
-Lay dolmas (/palms) on top of salad.
-Spread inside of pita with hummus or other spread and leave to eat on the side.

Serves one.

After buying what seemed like an extravagant array of preserved and fresh foods items, I ate this salad at least once a day for a whole week and still had many of the things left, so I decided it was quite practical after all. It was also filling, delicious, pretty, and seemed awfully nutritious.

Clearly any number of substitutions, omissions, and augmentations can be made with this salad. I forgot to list that avocado was present on a few of the days. Some days other items were absent, and that was okay too. I did find that eating the palmitos (hearts of palm) as whole sticks was somehow more satisfying than integrating them as slices in the salad, and that a good toss with the oil and vinegar transforms the salad from a bowl of raw veggies into a bowl of juicy bliss. If you have a deep container with a lid, use it, that way you can shake it.

Anyway yeah, I'm sure this would be good with artichoke hearts (another canned/jarred item), fresh or roasted red peppers, tapenade, tabouli, any number of fresh vegetables, different nuts or seeds, or as a sandwich where everything goes in the pita instead of having it on the side.

Get crazy. Eat a dope meal salad. Love late Winter.

Banana Dog

This is an amazing snack or small meal that I'm proud to say I invented myself. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has ever stumbled upon this treasure, but I've never seen anyone else eating it on their way to work in the morning, so I'm calling it my own.

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana
1 Alvarado Street sprouted hot dog bun
Nut butter of your choice (peanut, almond, cashew, sunflower, etc.)

To assemble:
-Split the hot bog bun open and spread the nut butter on both sides.
-Peel the banana and lay it, whole, into the hot dog bun.

Mmmm!! This makes a great breakfast, can be eaten anywhere, and is healthy and filling! Eat with a big glass of tea, coffee, plant milk, juice, or water for a complete breakfast, lunch, or snack. Oh, and don't forget to giggle about the fact that you're eating a BANANA DOG! Giggling is an often-overlooked part of a meal, as is repeatedly naming the silly food you're eating outloud, to whoever is around.

Love and giggles,
Julia