Savory Vegan Un-roasted Sunflower seeds

This is one of my favorite go to snacks for traveling or a lazy afternoon that can be quite easy to make if you have a morning at home and even if you don’t have a dehydrator.

Nutritional yeast is full of fantastic vitamins and nutrients, most notably it contains vitamins B and B12 and only a 1/2 tbsp provides the daily suggested amount of B12 for an adult. It’s also rich in amino acids, folic acid, protein, and biotin, not to mention it’s lovely savory flavor. I use it in snacks, entrees like vegan lentil loaf, savory vegan stroganoff, and in homemade gravies. It is also a perfect cheese replacer and a little dash can jazz up any meal in seconds. Even salads! It is definitely a key player in this delicious and savory afternoon snack.

Here is a “fast” and simple version of Vegan Un-roasted Sunflower Seeds:

• 1 1/2 cups raw sunflower seeds
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp or generous amount of nutritional yeast
• Your favorite sea salt to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp curry spice
• 1/8 cup water

Pre heat your oven to it’s lowest setting or to 140 degrees if possible prop the door of the oven open with a rolled up dish towel or oven mit to encourage air circulation and lower the temperature a bit.

In a mixing bowl add your seeds, spices and nutritional yeast, giving it a little stir slowly pour in your water to help the yummy flavors stick to the seeds. Spread onto a baking sheet or your dehydrator shelf with a spatula. And allow to dehydrate for about 2 hours.

For the longer version, far superior might I add, and for making in bulk:

• 4 cups sunflower seeds
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 4 tbsp of nutritional yeast
•  2 tsp you favorite seas salt
• 1 tbsp curry spice
• 1/2 + cup water

Soak your seeds for 4 – 5 hours strain any excess water before combining ingredients, but save a 1/2 cup soaking liquid for mixing seasonings. The same method of dehydration is used only this time you may need two baking sheets and it will take approximately 8 hours dehydration time.

I love to add dehydrated cranberries, raisins, or lemon zest for a little bit of contrasting flavor and sweetness. I hope you enjoy!

Hillery

The Amazing Vegan Lentil Loaf Recipe

So we all know that lentil loaves don’t exactly have anything to do with this week’s theme of Bicycles, but I promise you this meal is mighty fine and it’s packed with protein and fiber and veggies and all the really, really good stuff that makes your body run smoothly and have energy for pushing the petals. Plus it’s going to knock your socks off.

This is a household staple for us. No, James and aren’t vegan. We actually really love cheese. I mean really love cheese. We do, however, like to eat healthy. When we are not eating tons of cheese that is. Also me being a vegetarian  this is a great way to get that protein punch and my veggies all in one go.

Okay so I have to admit something. I am having a love affair with the Vegan Stoner, well not the vegan stoner, but the vegan stoner’s blog and cook book. This blog has helped me jump start many a meal in the past six months. Someday, I’d love to own the cook book and the snack book. Some day when I am rich, or rather richer than I am, meaning that I actually have money  in order to spend it. Yay to somedays!

So today I want to share with you the inspiration of this lentil loaf of awesomeness and it comes from The Vegan Stoner. I have tried many loaves through out the years and this was the first internet recipe I actually had any luck with. So here it is, the ultimate stoner loaf, that just happens to be vegan. Isn’t it much cooler to play with beans than raw meat? Personally, the answer to that question is yes.

image source

Tell me you are not in love with that illustration? Also this loaf is one of the most moist loaves ever. Which is a big deal. Lentil loaves are known for their crumbliness.

Okay so while the recipe above is awesome in itself. I want to tell you today how to make it ultimate. That’s right, you heard me, The Ultimate Lentil Loaf……Also known as:

The One Vegan Lentil Loaf to Rule them all

So let’s get down to business. here is what you need:

• 2 cups cooked red lentils – well drained and by this I mean really well drained. You need as little extra moisture as possible in this recipe.
• 2+ cloves of garlic, or to taste – minced
• Half of one large onion or two small – finely diced
• half of one regular sized red pepper and one regular sized green pepper – diced
• 1 small turnip diced
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 1/2 cup grated carrot
• 1/4 cup diced celery stalk
• 1/4 cup applesauce – UPDATE – I don’t know how I forgot to write this in the initial post, applesauce is what gives this loaf it’s gumption!
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• two tsp tamari or your favorite soy sauce – Optional
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast – Optional
• 1 tbsp ground sage
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground onion – Optional
• 1/2 tsp ground garlic – Optional
• 1/4 cup walnuts – crushed/diced/minced whatever (put them in a bag and roll over them with a rolling pin once or twice.)
• 1  & 1/2 cups rolled oats divided – with the 1/2 cup ground into flour in coffee grinder
• 1/2 cup veggie broth set a side

{If skipping over the optional seasonings – tamari, nutritional yeast, ground onion and garlic, you can simply  replace with two vegan vegetable bouillon cubes or cook your lentils in veggie broth.}

Ingredients for glaze:

• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• pinch  or 2 of chipotle or chili powder
• a dash of tamari
• 2 to 3 tbsp strong coffee – add in each tbsp one at a time till you reach a thick tomato soup constancy

{This glaze can be replaced by ketchup if you prefer or the coffee can be replaced with vanilla extract, or you can replace one tbsp of coffee with water for milder flavor.}

 Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Using a potato masher and a large mixing bowl mix everything together, except for oats and veggie broth. Then add in whole oats and mix thoroughly. If the mixture seems too moist add in the ground oats little by little until a nice smooth dough that is hard to stir. A perfect medium – not too dry, not to moist. If  too dry nix the ground oats and slowly mix in veggie broth till  the mixture reaches that in between stage.

Grease a bread pan with veggie oil, spoon in your mixture and even out the top. Set on the middle rack of your preheated oven. Set a time for 40 minutes or until top is golden brown. Once the loaf is nice and brown cut a trench about one inch deep in the top to ensure it’s done inside. It should not be too sticky in the center and a fork should come out clean. Then spread your glaze over the top of the loaf and filling in the trench on the top. Allow to bake for about 10 to 15 minutes longer until glaze is bubbly. Remove loaf from oven and allow to cool in the pan for five minutes, then remove to cool on a wire rack for another 5 as it slices better when not fresh out of the oven and has time to set up.

Tip: If your doughy mixture is too moist you can divide the mixture into two loaf pans and stack together after cooking with a layer of glaze in the middle. Yum yum! This avoids the top and bottoms over cooking with a sticky center.

Tip: Make extra glaze and slightly caramelize on the stove top in a shallow pan to serve on the side for those extra saucy guests.

Now is the time to dig in! I usually serve this loaf with classic mashed potatoes, a sage gravy, Southern style sautéed onions and squash/zucchini, and a salad. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (:

Eating alone: Part One – That’s too much effing food on your plate

Eating alone is not one of those things that our society prepares us for once we reach adulthood. Many North Americans are unfamiliar with their kitchen appliances and know very little of proper food preparation.

But eating cheaply and well can be done without any fancy schooling, and even if you are a single lady, oh, oh, oh.

My first advice to you? Invest in a few tools! No handy-person would show up to the job without their tools. Approach feeding yourself this way and it will make life a breeze.

The first tool you need is a good knife, and by good I don’t mean you have to buy a hundred dollar knife, but making an educated purchase from a specialist retailer – like an actual kitchen supply store, and not a department store will ensure you have the knife you need. Just begin by inquiring about knives, ask to hold one so you can test the weight (see if it’s comfortable). It doesn’t need to be too heavy or too fancy, but you should look for something which feels both confident in your hands, and is dependable. I always look for a knife with a long ‘tang’, this means that the blade extends the full length of the handle, increasing both stability, and ensuring I will never need to worry about handles breaking-off. Ask about price ranges and make sure you state up front that your aren’t looking to spend a fortune and see if they’ll throw in a knife sharpener for free.

And, while you’re at the kitchen supplies store… invest in some regular ol’ measuring cups and spoons, and if you can, invest in a quart sized liquid measuring cup. These should just about cover all bases in the measuring department. You don’t even need a fancy-shmancy scale to get the job done.

The last tool(s) I would insist that you invest in are quality tupper-ware and food storage containers (be them bags or not, whatever tickles your fancy, really). I prefer being a little nicer to mother earth by purchasing reusable containers. I look for tempered glass which can withstand both freezing as well as oven temperatures, in similar sizes (for easy fridge/freezer organization) and just large enough to hold food for two servings (which I will address in my article about freezing and storing food). I suggest investing in re-usable freezer bags, but regular ziplock baggies will work if you have them around. Although, you can find some very affordably priced reusable freezer and fridge storage bags here in the LoveForEarth etsy shop.

Now that you have your tools, it’s time to get cooking. The most important advice I can give you here is measure, measure, measure. Eating alone is all about the realization of yield. Or how much an item changes in volume after it’s cooked. Now, your measurements don’t need to be exact in most cases – these aren’t volatile chemicals in science class, they are potatoes – however, it is always good to measure ingredients fairly accurately to insure both A) you don’t cook more than you need and B) so you don’t end up with all potato and no butter; meaning it’s much easier to spice something if you know how much you are actually cooking.  You might also want to work on brushing up on your fractions when attempting to scale down recipes. But hey, you can almost always look up how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup on the ol’ interwebs.

Have you ever cooked too much pasta? Or too little? Pasta is the most common go-to food for when you need to eat fast, yet, pasta is tricky and odd shaped, and it doesn’t really fit in a measuring cup very well. I’ll let you in on a few tricks about the different kind of pastas and how you can easily measure them for the perfect fast and easy meal for one.

There are three basic types of pasta, the first of which I will address are spaghetti and linguine. The easiest way to measure these types of pasta without a scale is to grab a handful between your thumb and pointer finger. A hand full about the diameter of a 25 cent coin is about 2 ounces of pasta, or the average size for a light meal or pasta side dish. If you are going to be having pasta as your main course you can increase this to 3 or 4 ounces, or two ’25 cent’ hand-fulls, personally, I find this is too much pasta and usually go with a middle ground.

For measuring smaller pastas such as macaroni or penne this is when your quart cup measuring cup comes in handy, because they are bit wider than the ‘stackables’ and pasta can lay quite comfortably. Pasta like these usually double in volume, so half a cup to three fourths is about a two ounces of dry pasta and cooks to just about a cup.

Egg noodles, are similar to other pastas, but tend to double or even triple in size when cooked, which can be tricky. I find that a fourth a cup is  about two ounces of dry pasta and will be just over a whole cup when cooked.

Now, all people are different; some people have smaller/larger appetites than others. This series has nothing to do with portion control, but simply how to gauge food so you waste less when eating alone. If you try the measurements above and find that it is too much, or too little, please feel free to adjust accordingly as that leads to more effective cooking.

It’s also very important to measure when cooking other grains such as rice, oatmeal, and barely. I suggest investing in a cookbook on grains that can guide you through how to cook each grain perfectly or consulting the internet for the specific grain as there are many forums and cooking websites which discuss the yields of different grains. Though I will share with you the method I use to get the perfect steamed rice.

Through my experience, 1/2 a cup of dry rice has proven to be the perfect amount for a main course for one person and ends up about equalling about 1 cup cooked. To get the perfect steamed rice it is very important not to have too much water as the grain will become mushy and tasteless. For every 1 cup of rice you need 1 and 1/2 cup water and for a 1/2 cup you need just under a whole cup of water, or about 3/4ths. You will need a pot that has a tight fitting lid. If you are worried that your lid doesn’t close tight enough you can put a piece of tin foil between the lid and the pot and turn down the sides. I learned that from Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking, an excellent cookbook by the way. Add the rice and the water together into the pot, set the stove element to high and wait for it to boil. Once the rice and water come to a boil cover and turn the temperature down to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. After 15 minutes check the grains, if they are done enough to your liking remove from element, fluff with a fork, and serve. If not remove from the element and keep the rice covered for another 10 minutes undisturbed. After the 10 minutes the rice should be perfectly steamed.

Having the right tools as well as being more aware of food yields will make cooking and preparing the proper amount of food for one person much easier. Especially when it comes to grains like pasta and rice which don’t keep very well and are quick to make.

Be sure to check back for Eating alone: Part 2 – If you liked it then you shoulda put a label on it.

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